


Ghost in the Woods

by decaf_kitty



Series: Hunting Ghosts, Taming Monsters [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Missing-Nin Hatake Kakashi, Parent Umino Iruka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2020-11-23 08:09:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Iruka is being hunted in the woods outside Konoha.By an infamous missing nin.Kakashi Hatake.Their confrontation - and conversation - is not what he expects.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've always wondered about Missing Nin Kakashi. This is my own take on the idea... Something mysterious and spectral.
> 
> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy. Your feedback is always appreciated; your comments sustain, empower, and inspire me.
> 
> ___

Iruka knew this man, this missing nin.

_Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi of the Sharingan. Kakashi the Friend Killer._

He was no match for such a shinobi. His defenses, even on their best day, would have withstood only a few seconds before Kakashi would have broken in - and broken him. 

And this was not his best day. Iruka was at the end of a failed mission, a few miles outside his home village of Konoha. He’d lost his two teammates at two different points within the last hour. The first fell to a trap, being torn limb from limb, spraying blood everywhere, not even screaming as her death was so sudden. The second had slipped on a tree branch after having heard something behind them; a moment later, as Iruka looked back for him, he saw smoke, electric light, then the silhouette of his chūnin companion with an arm through his chest.

It was time to run and run fast.

But this was Kakashi Hatake, the boy who stayed behind, the man who became a ghost.

He was standing a few feet away, both his differently-colored eyes aglow in the pastel sunrise. Unlike Iruka, who was trembling from fatigue and fear, Kakashi stayed in place, watching him.

The missing nin was not only in the Bingo Books but in the whispered legends of the village. He looked every bit as terrifying as the stories made him out to be. 

There were murmurs of his Sharingan stolen from his dead Uchiha teammate, used to kill stray shinobi from Konoha who dared cross into his section of the wilderness. They said Kakashi had taken advantage of his fallen colleague half-crushed under a boulder; he’d used his fingers to dig out the Sharingan of the boy’s skull, scratching the bone of the crying protesting Uchiha.

There were frantic comments about his supernatural speed, that he surreally matched the Fourth Hokage, supposedly his dead mentor and the village’s most mourned hero. 

There was the unkind comparison between Kakashi and his former friend, Maito Gai, the boy-turned-man who had become crazed after his rival’s defection from the village. It was said Gai was never the same, that the spark in his eyes and life was replaced by something darker, twisting, turning, like black snakes in a deep pit, writhing about each other, desperate to escape, but finding no way out of the darkness. But, unlike Kakashi, Gai had always remained loyal to Konoha, even if his intensity burned anyone that dared to come near him.

There were also the very softest whispers of Kakashi being a warped version of his father. Although he had not chosen the same fate, the son of Konoha’s White Fang had walked somewhere worse, down the only path more shameful and dishonorable than suicide.

_Missing nin._

The story was the least discussed – how the defection had happened – but Iruka knew it, even only having heard it once. After a disastrously failed mission, the young ANBU captain had silently abandoned his village, disappearing into the darkness, never again to return to Konoha. The specifics of that last mission were lost to time, but everyone agreed: good shinobi had died.

This time, on this day, Iruka’s mission was not supposed to go so bad. It had been a simple escort mission. While his team had accompanied the merchant to the distant market without issue, once they were alone… the three Konoha shinobi had been hunted down… one by one…

_By Kakashi Hatake._

The man looked mysteriously loose. His scratched-out hitai-ate rested in his thick silver hair. His gloved hands were in his pockets; somehow his slight weight seemed to ground him. He didn’t appear to blink or have a single passing worry as he observed Iruka struggle to catch his breath and grip the tree bark behind him as if it would save him from the wicked throes of death. 

The Sharingan was such a sight – there was simply no preparation for it.

Right now, Sasuke was back in Iruka’s classroom being taught by a substitute. He was pre-genin, a snide little thing striving to be something big and tough. He was just a boy. The Uchiha blood had not turned violent and vile within him - not just yet – hopefully not ever.

Kakashi’s Sharingan was the evolved one, the Mangekyō Sharingan of legend and lore. Its darker bands were hypnotizing, but it was the tiny bright-red circle in the center that caught Iruka.

He was staring only at _it_ as Kakashi advanced leisurely, far too aware of his superiority. Looking fearfully monastic, Kakashi’s attire was simplistic while mismatched and eclectic, including his threadbare blue half-mask. Soon the missing nin closed his eyelid, the Sharingan vanishing under pale skin. He was close now, only inches away; his own natural eye, the one not ripped from his friend’s face, was inspecting Iruka like he had spotted something interesting through a store window.

Then Kakashi’s rough fingertips touched Iruka’s chin, lifting his whole face upwards.

The unmasked part of shinobi’s face was a void – an empty space where an expression should be.

Iruka could tell his own scarred features were awash with a thousand different things. 

Fear. Fury. Grief.

Without thinking, Iruka narrowed his eyebrows at the other man. He bared his teeth in a snarl, rejecting the touch of a missing nin who so terribly betrayed their village. His hands clenched into fists, not readying to fight but straining in visceral disgust of the nin standing before him.

“You teach Naruto Uzumaki.”

Iruka’s expression went out of his control: he blinked several times, his whole face opening up in lost bewilderment. He knew he hadn’t hallucinated the voice – that was Kakashi who had spoken – he was the only other person alive in these woods – but what did he mean? 

The statement wasn’t uttered as if Kakashi wanted to kill Naruto. 

It wasn’t a dreary throw-away comment.

It was like he was – wait, was he -

Was Kakashi Hatake interested in Naruto?

Protective rage inspired Iruka, made him fast and stupid. He flung Kakashi’s hand off his chin and tried to go through hand formations for barrier ninjutsu. He needed to get back to Konoha, he needed to find Naruto, he needed to keep the boy safe and sound. No one was there for Naruto, no one would protect him, he drank expired milk and ate instant ramen and tried to get attention in all the same pathetic pain-screaming ways that Iruka had also done years ago as an orphan, a kid abandoned by the village.

Kakashi’s Sharingan came alive.

Iruka was down on the ground in less than a second.

His lungs were desperately seizing; the breath had been knocked out of him. 

Soft curiosity filled Kakashi’s mostly-masked face while the missing nin looked down at him. Several anguished seconds passed before Iruka realized Kakashi Hatake was holding their hands together, trapping him into stillness and inaction. The other man was a heavy, unmovable weight on Iruka’s hips, spreading open his legs and shoving down his shins. Even the cleverest taijutsu user would have trouble fighting their way out of the position…

It was obvious where Kakashi had learned the move – rather, who he had learned it from.

The sorry thought flowed through Iruka’s mind:

_Maito Gai… Your rival still remembers you._

The Sharingan again went away, leaving Kakashi’s single dark eye to do double duty. The missing nin looked much more intrigued now; he was acting as if Iruka had done something peculiar and unexpected, like a stray dog performing expert-level stage tricks.

“Is he doing well?” 

_That’s definitely his voice, even if I can’t see his lips behind the mask._

Iruka stared up at the shabbily-dressed shinobi, unsure what to say. Of course, he could have provided a million little details about Naruto Uzumaki, like how the boy had already failed to graduate the Academy twice while under Iruka’s supervision, but this really did seem to be his year, if only he could learn some patience and master basics like the clone jutsu. He had increasingly stepped in to support Naruto, having found the young feisty creature in desperate need of care. He was taking more missions – riskier missions – to pay for all the ramen that Naruto consumed, for more school supplies, for proper shoes and winter bedding and kunai and multivitamins. 

That’s why he was on this mission.

For Naruto.

His mind going blank, Iruka replied in a voice so quiet that he barely heard himself:

“… he eats too much ramen.”

Kakashi Hatake, Konoha’s most infamous missing nin, stared right back at him for a second.

Then he -

Well, then he laughed. 

Just once. It was a breathy sound of true amusement.

“I see,” Kakashi responded, his tone light. But then his gaze became cruelly assessing as he stated, “That’s why you’re on an A-ranked mission when you should be in the village.” As Iruka went pale with infuriated embarrassment while underneath him, Kakashi continued, seeming oblivious to the reaction he was causing: “His family's dead - so you’re paying for his things.”

_He’s an insane genius. Oh no. **Oh no.**_

But Iruka failed to shield his expression: he could feel terror seep through his scarred cheeks at hearing Kakashi correctly appraise his familial relationship with Naruto Uzumaki. 

Involuntarily, his hands seized onto Kakashi’s, sinking his fingernails into the missing nin’s fingerless black gloves, into the many-colored patches keeping the dark cloth intact.

Instead of forcing Iruka to endure eye contact, Kakashi glanced down at their combined hands.

The shinobi adjusted his thin fingers on top of Iruka’s, making it a little harder for Iruka to dig into his skin. Saying nothing further, the man seemed to be thinking deeply as he considered their hands so painfully intertwined together.

Surprisingly, Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan had become so distracted, Iruka could actually study the legendary lost figure of Konoha. The man had grown tall and thin as he aged; he didn’t seem to have anything new on him. Instead, much of his clothing was old gear from the village. Other pieces were necessary war trophies from those that he had killed… including, Iruka suddenly realized, clothing and weaponry from Konoha’s enemies, from other hidden villages, but also from unknown people and places Iruka didn’t recognize at all.

_That’s an unusual strip of cloth… jet-black with a red cloud…?_

“I won’t kill you,” Kakashi announced.

Fear and confusion flying through him, Iruka’s gaze jerked back up to the missing nin’s – but Kakashi was still focused on their hands. Yet now his Sharingan was open, literally memorizing the look of them bound together. He remained perfectly still and unbothered on top of Iruka. 

“You should stop taking A-ranks,” the traitorous shinobi insisted. Both Kakashi’s organic black eye and his blood-red Sharingan with its dark marks swept up to meet Iruka’s ordinary eyes. His following question was frightening in its rhetorical might: “If you die, what will happen to him?”

Suddenly Iruka had a hard time breathing – not because he was running for life while being hunted - not because Kakashi had mercilessly merged genjutsu and taijutsu and thrown him down into the dirt.

He hadn’t said a thing to Naruto about the possibility of him dying while away on a mission.

The topic was so awful that Iruka had avoided it, not wanting to deal with the boy’s reaction.

But what if Kakashi Hatake killed him here and now?

What would –

Iruka would not beg for his life, but apparently, he didn’t need to do so, because abruptly Kakashi was no longer straddling him and was standing farther back in the woods. The missing nin was but a shadow standing small amidst towering trees, resuming his observation of Iruka in silence. Keeping his gaze on the other man, Iruka stumbled to his feet, rubbing at his sore hands. He tried not to let his confusion overwhelm him, but he was certain his expression showed how badly tortured he felt with the whirlwind of wrong occurring in the Konoha forest.

His teammates dead… for what reason? Just like him, they were desperate chūnin, needing fast cash from a high-ranked mission, but they’d become nothing but ash in Kakashi’s hands.

While he was kept alive, because of… Naruto?

And, although Kakashi was obviously missing nin… just what was he doing so close to the village he’d betrayed so many years ago?

The enigmatic shinobi in the shadows said nothing else to him, even as he continued to watch Iruka’s departure using both his stolen Sharingan and his old Hatake eye.

Iruka passed through the gates of Konoha, covered in dirt and blood, reeking of smoke and death, and he reached for the mission scroll out of dulled instinct, wanting this all to be over.

He had to see Naruto. They had to talk. 

But, instead of a scroll, Iruka’s fingers found hard currency.

His ego was not enough to destroy the money. 

He bought Naruto better-fitting shoes and treated him to ramen for a whole month.

He remembered his dead teammates. He looked at his hands and thought about rainbow-patched fingerless black gloves. He wondered just who Kakashi Hatake killed – and why – and –

_How does he know about Naruto._

_Why does he care._

In his dreams, Iruka stood atop Konoha’s walls and gazed into the wilderness, seeking a ghost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, let's see where this goes, shall we?
> 
> Thanks for the love. Y'all are beautiful and kind.
> 
> ____

Iruka began to black out as soon as Mizuki leapt away.

He saw the cold forest floor rise up to embrace him. Grass cushioned his head as he hit the ground. Soil stuck to his tear-strewn scarred face. The taste of blood in his mouth – the screaming pain from innumerable kunai and the massive shuriken – the soul-shattering agony of Naruto running away from him…

Foolish words stumbled out of him as he faded into darkness:

“Naruto, don’t believe him, I don’t hate you…”

New distress lit up his body: Iruka stiffened in instinctive anticipation. A moment later, his eyes snapped open as someone grabbed his flak jacket next to the free-bleeding wound beside his spine. Instead of going flat in the dirt, he was suddenly picked up, two strong arms hauling him to his feet. Unable to get his footing, Iruka fell forward and desperately grabbed the person holding him.

He locked eyes with Kakashi Hatake - the very same moment the man started to channel healing chakra into his sliced-open back.

The missing nin looked exactly as he did a month ago.

Raggedy-dressed. Infinitely relaxed. Insane. Lethal. Cold.

Kakashi slid his Sharingan closed as he looked down at Iruka. It was probably only seconds, but for Iruka, with his head spinning and heart pounding, it seemed like a full millennium passed. Shaking from blood loss against Kakashi’s chest, Iruka barely registered the missing nin continuing to heal him in silence. 

Iruka felt his expression contort: incredulity crushed the words out of him.

But he did think to himself:

_He’s… warm._

Suddenly, Kakashi pulled Iruka off of him and steadied him enough so he could stand alone. He nodded in the direction where Naruto had sprinted away with the scroll… and then declared sharply, staring at Iruka with one dark impassive eye:

“Go get him, sensei.”

The rest was a ferocious blur, but there were jutsus of every kind, common and forbidden. Deep in the woods, Mizuki’s obnoxious laughter grated Iruka down to his bones. But, as he glared at the other shinobi, Iruka soon found himself professing his love for Naruto, his pride in the boy, his acceptance of him, while yet again bleeding badly in the forest. The subsequent sight of a hundred Narutos was nearly too much for Iruka’s heart to handle, but he really did enjoy seeing Mizuki getting pummeled into the ground. 

He found the willpower to stand – distantly understanding Kakashi’s healing was keeping him afloat – and presented Naruto with his precious hitai-ate. 

They made it back to Konoha with Mizuki’s dead weight - then it was off to the hospital after a little lecture from the Third Hokage - before finally eating at the ramen stand with Naruto.

With his head stuffed with pain-killers and his body full of strange chakra, Iruka asked Naruto to return to his old apartment for the night. Fortunately, the brand-new genin was so exhausted, he obeyed without much protest at all.

Iruka fell into bed. He flinched at the flush of pain and turned self-protectively on his side. 

The medical-nin hadn’t said anything about the already partially-healed cut, nor about Kakashi Hatake’s chakra swimming through Iruka’s pathways. His back wound was still bad and would be for some time, but Konoha’s otherworldly missing nin, the one who waited outside the village, had certainly hastened Iruka’s recovery.

Iruka wondered if he had imagined the other man out of fear.

Suffering had saturated him so deeply… had he conjured the missing nin from his dreams?

Maybe Kakashi Hatake hadn’t been there at all?

Still… Iruka couldn’t shake one thing…

_Kakashi was warm._

It was incredibly bright in his bedroom. Iruka’s gaze groggily turned up to the window above his bed. He was expecting sunlight, but no, it had barely been an hour since he’d fallen asleep. 

Instead… the light was coming from a red-wax candle on his nearby desk… which had not been there before. 

Iruka stared at the flame.

Then he looked beside his bed.

And there he was: _Kakashi Hatake._

The missing nin was only three feet away, standing peacefully in the bedroom. Iruka had neither heard him nor noticed him enter. Unperturbed at being discovered, Kakashi said nothing. He was still wearing his patchwork attire, although this time he’d swept his grey hair up and left. His scratched-out hitai-ate hung down over his Sharingan, the headband fusing with his frayed blue mask.

Iruka wanted to say about a dozen different things and ask a hundred more – but then he noticed something else and, unable to control himself, exclaimed, absolutely appalled:

“Is that my blood?!”

Kakashi slowly blinked his Hatake eye… and looked down at himself. 

They both stared at the front of his multi-colored jacket and shirt, visibly stained with Iruka’s blood. As he became aware of the issue, Kakashi lifted up his hands and glanced at them, too. They were even worse than his clothing: his overly-patched gloves were splashed with a dark liquid – Iruka’s lifeblood! – and Kakashi’s fingertips looked like he’d dipped them in red ink.

“Clean yourself up,” Iruka ordered, his voice hard. He did not want to be reminded of Mizuki’s betrayal nor how terrified Naruto had been just hours earlier. Seeing his insides spilled out on another shinobi was intolerable after such a long and painful day. He was scowling at Kakashi, unwilling to retreat from his demand, too delirious from fatigue and pain to control himself. 

The missing nin stayed still.

Several seconds passed. 

Finally, he turned his head and visually searched Iruka’s apartment for the bathroom. Without a word or sound, Kakashi Hatake abruptly disappeared in a slight silvery flash. The familiar sound of running water met Iruka’s ears… inevitably lulling him back to sleep.

Something brushed his bare back.

As frantic alarm shot through him, Iruka started to turn over – but a slender hand caught his bicep and held him in place.

He looked up in surprise and found Kakashi Hatake sitting behind him. The missing nin was clad in a set of Iruka’s black sleeping clothes… without a mask or his murderous hitai-ate covering his face. 

The effect was so startling that Iruka’s lips parted and nothing came out.

For all his mysterious aloofness, Kakashi looked embarrassed enduring such attention. He had a frightfully lean face; the lower portion was paler than the top half, having been hidden from the sun. The deep scar through the left side cut through his silver eyebrow and dug into his cheek, dancing down to the edge of his mouth. Acting like a dangerous exclamation point, a dark beauty mark sat alone by Kakashi Hatake’s lips. 

Several other smaller scars crisscrossed the usually-masked portion of the shinobi’s face, including one that looked terrifyingly like someone had tried to claw open Kakashi’s throat. The three freshly-red marks waterfalled over his jawline, cascaded down his neck; they were clearly the result of someone catching him with chakra-infused fingernails.

Iruka didn’t realize what he was doing, but his hand was hovering between them.

He was reaching for Kakashi’s most recent injury.

Shock stole away his courage, so he tried to pull back, but the missing nin in his bedroom caught his hand and held it.

Terribly thrown by the corporeal enigma, Iruka suddenly asked him: “Why did you save me?”

Kakashi did not hesitate. His response was instantaneous.

“Naruto needs a family.”

This time, Iruka could see the man’s mouth move. It really was Kakashi Hatake speaking. There had been fleeting fears of genjutsu, that perhaps Iruka was caught in something he didn’t understand, but he sensed the instability in the room, he smelled his own soap on the other man, he felt Kakashi’s slow-beating pulse through their interlocked hands.

This was real. 

This was Kakashi Hatake, the ANBU Captain who defected nine years ago.

The ghost outside the gates.

Iruka could only whisper his other question.

“Why are you here?”

Silence reigned in the bedroom but for the soft crackling of the candle. With his face now exposed, Iruka thought he might see something on Kakashi’s expression, but it was the same as before: an eternal blank slate of emotionlessness. His old scar was brutal tragedy, but the fluff of his silver hair after showering made him appear strangely boyish. His claw injury had probably bled like a woman weeping over a grave, long lines of red streaming down Kakashi’s throat. 

His dark eye remained on Iruka, and his Sharingan stayed shut.

His response was silent.

Kakashi’s thumb caressed Iruka’s knuckles so lightly it could only be deliberate.

Iruka shivered, his skin singing.

But then he blinked – and Kakashi was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your heart may not be ready...
> 
> ___

Finding Maito Gai was easy. Rallying the bravery to approach him – impossible.

The jōnin stood akimbo, studying his genin team from afar. He presented an outlandish figure in green spandex, orange legwarmers, and a mission flak jacket; his bowl-cut hair made him all the more distinct. His trio of shinobi fought each other below on the training field: an outcast Hyūga, a fūinjutsu-specialist kunoichi, and an anomalous Gai in miniature. 

They were strong. They would try for chūnin in the next exams.

Without a doubt, Gai already knew Iruka was there. But, as ever, he withstood strangers staring at him and reacted not at all. His patience was as legendary as Kakashi’s defection. 

They had never spoken. 

Not even a passing “sensei” towards one another.

… Iruka could almost feel Kakashi’s hand in his own. He had to be brave. He had to try.

“Gai-sensei,” he called out, ignoring how shaky he sounded. 

The other shinobi turned to face him without adjusting his stance. His large hands remained on his hips, but his dark burning eyes were directed towards Iruka, and they seared through him.

The Green Beast of Konoha pronounced Iruka’s name as it were a jutsu – something profound and powerful – suddenly summoning chakra into the physical plane of existence.

“Iruka-sensei.”

Unlike the many times he’d seen Gai in the village, the man’s intensity was just for him. It was like witnessing a tsunami’s effect on the shore, the ocean receding, the waves growing higher and higher, the churning water promising to return with unimaginable force. 

He could feel Gai’s disinterest in their encounter; it made Iruka sick to his stomach.

He remembered the overjoyed boy that once was Maito Gai when Kakashi had been in the village. Boisterous antics, constant high-level training, rough-housing about Konoha in tight white bandages and forest-green cloth. He’d practically gone into hiding when word leaked back that Kakashi Hatake had abandoned the village. Not that Iruka had been looking for him… but he couldn’t remember seeing Gai for a long, long time after his so-called rival went dark.

For some reason, he couldn’t bullshit the other man. 

Iruka found himself instantly asking the question he’d thought he’d mention after ten minutes.

“Do you remember Kakashi Hatake?”

Gai’s face was hard, set in stone, chiseled like the Hokage Monument. His gaze did not drift from Iruka’s – not to the raucous combat of his team – not to the new sweat slicking down Iruka’s scarred cheek. Instead, his eyes were black and unfriendly as they sought out Iruka’s weaknesses as swiftly as he spotted them in Konoha’s enemies on the battlefield.

The jōnin’s voice carried easily, loud and derisive: “You ask of a man, but you only want myth.”

_No… I’ve seen him. He’s real. I know he’s real._

Not even trying to screen his feelings, Iruka shook his head insistently. “I want to understand: what was he like back then?” He slipped into the present tense without thinking as he became more desperate and panic crept into him, casting thought from his brain. “Tell me who he is.”

Iruka thought he had prepared himself for Maito Gai’s notorious speed and his strength, but he was suddenly inhaling boiling-hot chakra close to his face and looking into white furnaces for eyes. His skin was hot like he was standing outside in the midday sun; his throat felt closed off.

“He is the most loyal shinobi in Konoha history,” Gai bellowed right in Iruka’s face, each of his words fevered. He towered over Iruka, their noses just inches apart. His body temperature was unbelievable… He had opened a gate without uttering a word, without the least bit of effort. 

Absolutely defenseless against such emanating rage, Iruka found himself swaying. He might have fallen - except Gai snatched his flak jacket and prevented him from becoming too faint. 

“I will always serve our village,” the brokenly-exceptional man declared the same way a bride might promise her everlasting love. “I will win against Kakashi Hatake. He remains my rival.”

Then, just like the missing nin in question, Maito Gai was no longer there. 

Iruka stumbled backwards without the jōnin’s support, sweat flying off his stunned face. He could easily track where Gai had gone: the other shinobi was down on the training fields, perfectly disrupting a fatal blow from the Hyūga boy aimed towards the little kunoichi’s heart. Before the team leader did anything else, his young imitation went after him with fists burning. Then the other two followed suit, seeking out vulnerabilities in the indomitable man’s figure.

But there were no weak spots. 

Gai restrained himself from murdering his own, but the children were bloodied in seconds.

Iruka left much quicker than he arrived. He dismissed Naruto when the boy came by; he couldn’t imagine talking to him after seeing such violent distress in action. He had no such friends that would care for him with such passion and insanity nearly a decade later. He had no parents, no siblings, no cousins. His genin teammates were gone, lost on missions years ago. 

He didn’t understand Gai’s mad assertions of Kakashi’s loyalty – of service – of rivalry. 

… Iruka was brushing his teeth when the sliding door to his bathroom closed.

Instinct had him grab a kunai off the counter, but Kakashi Hatake pocketed it immediately. The motion was so monstrously swift that Iruka saw the weapon in his palm, then he didn’t, and he was staring down at his roughened palm instead of cold metal in less than a second. 

He met Kakashi’s eyes. 

Both of them.

The Sharingan was wide open, scarlet-red, and inflamed.

“You upset Gai,” Kakashi fumed, his voice crazily clear behind a cloth layer. 

He was foreboding in a way that Iruka had never seen: a furious shadow worsened the missing nin’s masked features. The small room swelled with the terribly familiar sense of killing intent… meant just for Iruka… only for Iruka…

His words were black as midnight as he demanded of Iruka, his world filled with dark fire: 

“Leave him alone.”

As expected, Iruka could offer no resistance against Kakashi Hatake in this state. He nearly dropped to the floor, but he caught himself just in time by throwing his weight against the sink. Although his head swirled with suicidal thoughts, Iruka could just make out Kakashi’s narrowed eyes, his unsettled stance, his infuriated expression straining through his tattered mask.

Iruka breathed out, shocked by the sudden discovery, barely able to believe it:

“He knows what you’re doing.”

In a single second, Kakashi took back his killing intent. His shoulders stiffened. His eye slitted.

As Iruka clamored to his feet, his surprise spun into defensive desperation. He lurched towards the missing nin, unable to control his movements, as the words tumbled out of him, scorching with the same destructive heat of Maito Gai’s white-fireplace eyes: “Do you visit him in the village? Do you even talk to him?”

He watched Kakashi’s countenance change in response, shifting from angry rejection to vast unerring emptiness. The shinobi went still in tandem. Before Iruka’s unbelieving eyes, he turned in a bizarre statue of a thousand colors and pale white skin and a full cache of weapons. 

Iruka clutched at Kakashi’s forearm, encircling a sandy-threaded section of his sleeve.

Stupid sentiment ensnared him and made him cry out:

“He misses you – he loves you!”

… Kakashi instantly smashed him into the sink, trapping Iruka’s arm behind him and nearly knocking his face into the mirror. Harsh breathing poured out of both of them. Spots swam over Iruka’s vision, swarming like insects, seeming alive and startled. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he looked up, and there, in the mirror, he saw –

Draped over him like a kaleidoscopic cloak, Kakashi Hatake was so disturbed he was shaking. Whatever martial training he’d had as ANBU dissolved into pieces in his flustered agitation. His black Hatake eye was wide and moving about wildly… but he was unmistakably seeing nothing. 

As he inhaled and exhaled, his chest erratically struck Iruka’s back. His fingers were too tight on Iruka’s arm; they pressed through muscle into bone, locating something hard and unyielding.

Then –

Iruka and Kakashi locked eyes in the mirror.

The spectral shinobi seemed all too real as he saw his own reflection… and winced.

When he vanished this time, he left nothing but bruises.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iruka chases ghosts... in his own special way.
> 
> ____

Iruka’s apology to Naruto came in the form of ramen.

He listened to the boy as he vented about Yamato-sensei for over an hour. It took some effort to remember Naruto’s new status as genin, but surely he was, evidenced by Iruka’s hitai-ate nested in his blonde hair where his goggles had been. There were the usual complaints about Sasuke – and sheepish gushing about Sakura – only now things were punctuated with running commentary about Yamato-sensei’s ghoulish expressions and insistence on hard work.

In the ramen booth, with their food already eaten, Iruka considered Naruto Uzumaki.

They weren’t father-son…

More like brothers?

… It was hard to tell. 

Perhaps he and Naruto really were a family like Kakashi had suggested. Certainly, Iruka had taken over for Naruto’s dead parents in a few ways, even though he was an orphan too. Had he done so because he didn’t want history to repeat itself? Admittedly, only the troublesome Naruto Uzumaki had caught his eye after years of teaching. There were many other orphans in the village: Sasuke was yet another one, the entire Uchiha clan made into a bloody mess by his brother. 

_Another missing nin._

Two of Konoha’s ANBU had turned against their village in the last ten years.

But Iruka was plagued with questions:

Had Kakashi truly betrayed his people?

Just what was he doing out in the woods?

A vision of Kakashi Hatake clad in Iruka’s black pajamas dreamily materialized in his mind. The other man had looked surprisingly small in Iruka’s clothing, the fabric collecting in excess in several places. He felt similarly sinewy when he’d held Iruka to heal him: he clearly wore several layers of cloth and armor, the ridges and bumps close to his frame hinting at an invisible hoard of weaponry. His face had been gaunt, his cheekbones high, his black Hatake eye haunted, and his Sharingan ablaze with unspoken sentiment.

_… is he eating enough?_

“Iruka-sensei? What’s up? Are you even listening to me?”

Tripping back over into reality, Iruka gave a remorseful laugh. “Sorry, Naruto,” he said. “It’s been a long day. Yamato-sensei sounds tough, but I’m sure you’ll impress him - just like how you won me over.” He reached over and ruffled Naruto’s hair, causing the boy to grimace and shy away, but the attempt was only halfhearted, proving yet again Naruto needed love.

He paid more attention to the final moments of their dinner, trying to dispel images of Kakashi Hatake. While Iruka was successful during the conversation, he found himself drifting off once more when Naruto waved a cheerful goodbye and headed home to his own apartment. 

As he stood in front of Ramen Ichiraku, Iruka glanced back to Teuchi busy behind the counter. The cook’s form was just barely visible between the slits in the noren, the divided fabric moving slightly in the evening breeze. The man’s daughter went to his side, speaking softly to him; the pair’s laughter made Iruka’s heart hurt. He had something like that with Naruto… but…

What about Kakashi? What did he have?

Unbidden, he recalled the missing nin’s suffocating killing intent. The sensation was not new: Iruka had been on plenty of missions where enemy nin turned on him, enraged, and, unfortunately, a few students had been so emotionally tormented at home, they projected it on their sensei at school. But Iruka had always survived. He’d never suffered the fate that was supposed to follow such black choking smoke, so dark and powerful it could cause self-harm. 

Gai had not wanted to kill Iruka. He filled with rage, yes… but it didn’t seem to be for Iruka.

Instead, when asked about the man who had forsaken their village, the Green Beast of Konoha burned the color of spring leaves, his eyes glowing a ghostly white.

Iruka shuddered.

Such passion. He wasn’t sure if he felt that… for anyone… or… anything.

He ordered ramen to go; he was soon walking under Konoha’s gates.

The sunset was slow-coming, the minutes ticking by without thought. The woods weren’t dark yet, the tall trees still easily seen and overwhelming in their massive might. He held the take-out bag from Ichiraku Ramen as if he was heading home with groceries, easygoing and casual.

But he was in the wilderness outside the village, walking into the cool shadow of the forest.

Memory served him well: he found the spot after a short while.

_This is where we first met._

There was the tree he’d desperately backed into – there was the leaf-strewn soil where he’d been thrown - there was the haphazard path back home to Konoha he’d taken alone.

Iruka could see the scene in spectral form, how Kakashi had waited as Iruka caught his breath from being hunted, how Kakashi had seemed dead-faced but curious only a few seconds before grappling with him, how Kakashi had taken slow special interest in their entangled hands.

“I’m worried about you,” Iruka spoke aloud into the silence. 

… Kakashi Hatake appeared nearby in the shade of a tree, his Sharingan open and scarlet-red.

Of course he’d been following Iruka. Of course he knew Iruka was there.

This was a missing nin, an ANBU Captain, a legend, a ghost, a – 

_No, he’s -_

_A man._

Kakashi’s gaze lowered to the take-out bag. Like all the other times, his expression hid behind his mask and his intense self-control. He showed nothing but overflowing multi-colored clothing and the most vivid sign of betrayal… his kunai-scratched hitai-ate pushed up into his silver hair. 

Iruka’s hitai-ate rested in Naruto’s blonde hair in the same position.

It was incredible that the two of them could exist in the same world… that the boy-vessel of the Nine-Tailed Fox and Konoha’s most infamous missing nin were within miles of each other.

“You should not bring ramen to a missing nin,” Kakashi suddenly said. 

As Iruka studied him, trying to understand the warning, he noticed the shinobi was much more disheveled than before. His frazzled hair stood on end like static electricity was in the air. His ragged rainbow clothing seemed to hang off his shoulders. Even the red-wrapped katana on his right hip was askew, sticking out weirdly behind him, with its gold tip sitting at a strange angle.

Kakashi’s masked expression was like the side of Iruka’s bed every night. 

Empty.

But Iruka remembered Kakashi’s wince in the mirror, his obvious regret. Calling upon courage, he dared to respond, accidentally falling into rhyme: “Or else he might come home again…?”

The shinobi’s gaze lifted up to Iruka’s face. Even though he could have stayed still and silent, Kakashi Hatake instead shook out of his serenity – and swept over to Iruka.

They were close, very close. It was not unlike how it was with Gai, the two of them standing only inches apart, their noses nearly touching. Although Kakashi seemed infinitely tall when he was by himself, he and Iruka were apparently quite similar in height. The other shinobi leaned down and brought their faces closer together with perfect predictable grace.

With such little distance between them, Iruka could smell the forest on the missing nin, its damp soil, its crisp air, its fallen leaves. 

The mask mostly concealed Kakashi’s face, but, with his headband in his hair, both his scar and the eye he’d taken were on full fascinating display.

The Sharingan stole Iruka’s heart away.

“Are you going to kiss me?” he whispered, staring up at the missing nin.

A second’s pause – then Kakashi answered, his voice velvet-soft, “… Should I?”

Iruka lost control of himself: he stretched up and slid his hands over Kakashi’s shoulders. Their mouths met through the worn-out mask; their lips instantly found one another. They pressed into each other with the same strength, which was far, far too much, and caused Iruka to dig down desperately through coarse cloth into Kakashi’s bones. He was chillingly pleased as the other man’s arms wrapped around his waist and crushed them even further together.

He wanted to taste the missing nin, the mystery, the misunderstood man. 

His tongue strained against cloth and wet Kakashi’s mask. 

The dangerous nin responded by yanking out Iruka’s hairband, delving deeply through his hair, and scratching across Iruka’s scalp with his nails exposed in his multicolored fingerless gloves.

They were nearly fusing together in the forest, losing themselves, becoming something new.

But soon they disconnected, and Iruka breathlessly wondered aloud, his eyes pained as he badly tried to see into Kakashi Hatake, to see deep inside him, to see his very soul:

“What are you doing out here?”

The mask barely moved as Kakashi explained, his voice like cracked leather, his Hatake eye ancient and his Uchiha eye blood-stained: “I cull the weak and challenge the strong.” 

Iruka’s heart stormed against his ribcage like enemy nin conquering Konoha. 

He could scarcely get the words out, but he finally forced himself to ask it, his hurt, his fear.

“Why did you kill my teammates?”

Kakashi did not waver whatsoever. His voice appeared as if from nowhere.

“They weren’t worthy.”

… It was a cold assessment, but… not totally untrue. He and the other two nin had not acted as a team. They were three chūnin desperate for bonus pay, each needing extra money for personal reasons. They worked together as effectively as any shinobi of their rank, but not any better. 

He saw his first companion – her fatal mistake – falling into a trap set for anyone so careless.

He saw the second in smoke – after having slipped, his fear and sloppiness leading to his death.

As Kakashi held him, and he clutched the man in turn, Iruka could only feel confused and alone. He was struck by quiet despair as he pled for one more answer: “Why didn’t you kill me?”

The missing nin’s fingers traced every single vertebra along Iruka’s spine up to his skull.

He touched his forehead to Iruka’s and confessed in a lost, frail tone…

“Your warmth.”

And then Kakashi Hatake stepped away and vanished into the sunset.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs sleep when there's such an alluring story to write?
> 
> _____

Iruka didn’t go back to the woods.

He stayed busy at work; he met up with Naruto between missions. On occasion he wondered if Kakashi had eaten the ramen he’d left behind. Silly things like that floated through his mind all the time. He thought about the missing nin when he was teaching at the Academy, working late shifts at the mission desk, doing errands around the village.

Confusing questions harassed him like summer mosquitos stabbing through sweaty skin: Did Kakashi wash his hair in streams? Did Kakashi clip his nails? Did Kakashi sleep in trees? Did he nestle into caves? … Did he have a hideaway somewhere, a place he called home? 

Iruka wasn’t sure when he would see the missing nin again. He had no idea what he would say. 

_Thank you for not killing me, that was so sweet of you._

_How do you know Naruto? Does he know you?_

_Can I possibly kiss away your pain...?_

_I want to rip your mask into tiny. little. pieces. I want to destroy it._

It was taking a toll on Iruka, but he endured. He took hot baths at night; he drank more sake. 

This was one of those days where Kakashi Hatake had haunted him – and so he sunk down into the steaming bathwater, closing his eyes, and tried to meditate. There were the regular mantras from his training, the ones that sustained him through dark times. There were bouts of relief, where he didn’t worry about if Kakashi owned a hairbrush, or if Kakashi ever miserably hugged himself on cold nights… wait - damn it! the man always invaded his thoughts so easily…!

Dipping down into the bath, Iruka covered his face with his hands. 

He sighed into his palms.

Then - a cacophonous **THUD** \- - in his bathroom! - - right beside the tub - - - !

Iruka couldn’t act fast enough, but it didn’t matter, because Kakashi Hatake was sprawled bonelessly across the bathroom – suddenly there, suddenly in existence – but he was no longer able to move any further. After apparently having flickered inside, Kakashi had instantly collided with the floor: some of his clothes were still fluttering from the shock of the crash. 

His wild silver hair shifted a little as he tried to lift his head – but he just couldn’t do it – so his face smashed straight down into the tile. 

Iruka’s stunned gaze went from Kakashi’s prone form – to – to -

All of the bright red blood now splattered across his bathroom.

There was wet crimson copiously dotting each one of his walls. Liquid blood streamed eagerly towards the shower drain, running away from Kakashi’s unmoving figure. Even the side of the tub was painted with a gruesome torrent of red, red, red…

Iruka heard himself gasp aloud “Kakashi!” as he frantically reached for the missing nin.

The strange spectral creature tilted his head aside and revealed his eternally-present blue mask. His black Hatake eye was nearly closed, seeing very little, maybe nothing at all. 

Yet his weak voice permeated the room as he whispered, falling ever fainter, “… my name.”

Iruka’s heart lodged in his throat as he watched Kakashi pass out. His movements became automatic: water poured off his nude body as he manhandled the wounded shinobi laid across his floor. So many layers stood in his way. Each of them had to be peeled off - pulled off - wrenched off Kakashi Hatake’s wilted frame. His armored grey ANBU-styled jacket, then two overly-patched long-sleeved shirts, then a skin-tight olive-green tactical vest, then finally –

Kakashi was slashed from shoulder to hip, going left to right. Terrifyingly, the sword had gone through every single layer of clothing and armor; clearly chakra had allowed the blade to cut deep, very deep. 

But it was not alone.

A kunai stuck out of Kakashi’s ribs, protruding from his left side.

But…

… oh…

… oh no…

_He’s bleeding from somewhere else._

Iruka’s knees sloshed through Kakashi’s blood and bathwater as he forcibly removed the man’s pants – then a second pair of armored thermal pants – and then gore-drenched underwear –

_There!_

There, in the thick of his upper thigh -

A small metal needle broken at the base… 

It was the worst injury, far above everything else.

Iruka recognized the weapon: its sharpened tip would have been poisoned. The elegant little thing must have snapped through the air and lodged in Kakashi’s femoral artery. It was minorly healed; Kakashi must have tried to stop the bleeding before heading into the village. 

Sword and kunai cost seconds, caused pain, left scars, but – but this –

This could kill a man.

He sought his medical-nin kit, ignoring the sight of his blood-splashed feet, shins, and knees. Everything moved fluidly as Iruka switched over to combat management, thinking efficiently and effectively, not letting anything else distract or disturb him.

Kakashi had not stirred.

He was a mess of blood, sickly white skin, and ghastly scars. 

Metal plyers finally removed the offensive needle. Iruka certainly did not have the correct antidote in his modest kit, but he did have a litany of other options, so he tore off Kakashi’s mask and made the man swallow several small vials of medicine. He rubbed his scarlet-slick hands together and then went through a half-dozen healing jutsus, ones that pursued poison, ones that coagulated blood. 

When he started to pant after losing so much stamina and chakra, Iruka turned to Kakashi’s boots. He wrestled with the muddy shoes – then clawed off the man’s grimy socks – then –

Then he hoisted Kakashi Hatake directly into the bath. 

Hot water and blood splashed across the bathroom floor. 

The injuries had all closed from the medical ninjutsu, but the missing nin was soaked…

_… in his own suffering._

Crouched over the bath, Iruka confirmed nothing else was wrong. He found only a couple of day-old wounds and a few dying ticks and fleas. He kept Kakashi above the water-line: the man was so unconscious, he would have drowned without support. Iruka’s critical gaze examined the lean wiry muscle and about a billion different scars. The discolored marks shone on Kakashi’s pale skin like starry constellations of trauma and struggle. 

Iruka drained the bath. 

The pink water faded away like open wounds closing and disappearing.

Sweat, Kakashi’s blood, and dirty water – they all desperately clung to Iruka. He really didn’t notice. He just didn’t care. 

There was too much else to worry about.

He ran his finger down Kakashi’s drying sword scar, the weak tissue healing and incredibly pink. 

He muttered to himself, overwrought and distraught, “Who normally heals you…?”

“Rin.”

Iruka jumped in place, snatching his fingers back. His gaze shot up to Kakashi’s face, but –

The man wasn’t fully awake. 

Iruka watched, astonished, as the missing nin flinched a little. 

He swallowed a bit. 

But… both the Sharingan and his eye stayed closed. 

His legs remained stretched ahead of him. His arms hung limp at his sides. 

Still - his breathing picked up. He shook his head. _He’s… trying to regain consciousness._

Suddenly, Kakashi’s right hand flickered – and then his fingers were furiously clutching at the shut Sharingan, digging into the scar through his eyebrow and cheekbone. 

“I don’t want it,” he seethed. His entire right arm was shaking. His feet caught the end of Iruka’s empty bathtub; he used it to stabilize himself, struggling to sit up properly. Before Iruka could intervene, even though he had no idea what he’d do, the missing nin’s face contorted violently into the most visceral torture. His next words were panicked, his voice breaking, as he scratched out a single despairing plea: “You can’t die here, please, please don’t die here.”

It was so horrible that Iruka found himself doing something stupid.

He grabbed Kakashi’s shoulders and spoke aloud the man’s name.

The consequence was –

Kakashi shoved himself suddenly into the farthest corner of the empty bathtub, his black eye and scarlet Sharingan both locked onto Iruka like he was a fearful unknown supernatural force.

He had crushed his legs up against his torso; he’d instinctively covered his vulnerable parts. He looked so stricken and bewildered that it was very hard for Iruka not to picture him as a pitiful wild animal trapped indoors, confused and scared, wanting insanely to get out the window. 

The image became a tiny bit comical as Iruka noticed Kakashi had instinctively sought out – and located – the best weapon within arm’s reach – which was –

Iruka’s little towel… the one he put on his forehead to cool down from the hot bath.

Kakashi was holding it so tightly in two hands, the fabric was already tearing in several places. 

Although Iruka was so stressed he almost broke into hysterical laughter, he couldn’t avoid the clear and disturbing realization that Kakashi could probably kill him with much less than a small square of cloth. 

Instead of falling into mad giggles or becoming deathly afraid of the naked missing nin in his bathtub, Iruka stood up and declared shortly, “I’ll get you a towel and some new clothes.”

Iruka found Kakashi in the exact same position when he returned with the items. Visibly afflicted by confusion and anxiety, the shinobi’s black eye and Sharingan tracked Iruka as he moved about the room. Not wanting to upset Kakashi any further, nor trigger a defensive counterattack, Iruka put everything on highest part of the bathroom, a spot perfectly free of dripping blood and repugnant water, and then left Kakashi to tend to himself. 

Alone in his bedroom, Iruka cleaned his body, dismissing his disgust as he scrubbed away blood. He combed back his hair and dressed in pajamas, completing his regular nightly routine.

Adrenaline leaked out of his system; sleepiness tried to follow in its wake.

But Iruka stayed awake as he sat on the edge of his bed.

No matter what, he would wait for Kakashi Hatake.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please know that I love you.
> 
> ____

Over an hour later, Kakashi Hatake emerged as an ethereal entity, his silver hair damp, his scarred skin hidden once more. Only his eyelid concealed the Sharingan: its subtle threat should have terrified Iruka. Instead, he watched wordlessly as the missing nin surveyed the bedroom, taking his time, adjusting for his blind spot. 

Kakashi was once again wearing Iruka’s black pajamas. In the clean dark-colored clothing, unmarred by patches and dirt and blood, the man looked beautiful… despondent but beautiful. 

Without his haphazard attire and his shadowy sulking in the woods, Kakashi Hatake looked more like a standard shinobi of Konoha. Here, now, he appeared like a young man, marked by warfare and missions, with his brain hardwired for violence but capable of compassion, too. His lean body was swallowed by the black long-sleeved shirt and pants, making his form appear all the younger and not fully matured. 

In the fanciful ways of the night, Iruka thought of Kakashi like a silver stag, the presumptive prince to a woodland kingdom, but one who had several summers and winters ahead of him before he reigned on his own. His elegance was mystical and unmatched, but he radiated a soft uncertainty in his every action, his every movement. The missing nin was silent and deliberate as he stood and observed his surroundings… but… he was also so very delicate that it scared Iruka. 

The sight activated strange parts of Iruka’s brain and body. It made him feel as if teetering on the edge. He was scandalized by the situation unfolding before him, but also, secretly, he -

… he felt hopeful.

Finally, the missing nin’s eye focused on Iruka on the bed. He remained standing outside the bathroom, seemingly confused about what to do next, unsure just where to go. His left hand drifted up to touch where the kunai had stabbed his ribs; his index finger dipped into the new scar underneath his shirt. His blank expression implied sociopathy and numbness, a man made into a killing machine, but Iruka knew better, he knew something else entirely.

He had witnessed the man weeping and grabbing the Sharingan in despair.

In this moment of fragility, he thought Kakashi looked rather lost. 

So Iruka moved under the covers and suggested in a low voice, “Come to bed.”

A long pensive pause occurred as Kakashi worked through his options in silence. Whatever his reasoning, the missing nin ultimately chose to follow orders; he strode forward and slipped underneath the bedsheets with surreal ease. Iruka turned aside and snuffed out the candle, then they both shifted around for a moment before settling into comfortable positions.

Although they had pressed against each another in the woods – and Iruka had just moved Kakashi’s poison-sedated body – it felt surprisingly overwhelming to be beside him. All of his senses sung and cried aloud: he could not absorb the wonder of Kakashi being near him in this way. No one had been alongside him in bed for over a year. The mattress, resenting having two men on its sides, was trying to sink them towards its middle to where Iruka normally slept.

Without being asked, the other nin had showered when left alone by himself. He smelled of Iruka’s soap, of sage and rosemary; his hair and skin were rubbed rough, rid of residual blood. 

He kept his Hatake eye averted away from Iruka and the Sharingan closed. His half-scarred face was fixed downward on the dark ocean of bedsheets covering their bodies. He was motionless.

In the weak moonlight, Iruka could have sworn there was pink on the missing nin’s cheeks. 

Iruka glanced down Kakashi’s figure, recalling a sea of scars and fresh wounds.

Disrupting the delicate quiet, the missing nin asked him, “Did I say anything?”

The words spilled out of him: Iruka didn’t even think to lie. 

“You called for your teammates.”

Kakashi closed his eye; his eyelashes formed soft grey lines on his pale cheek. His breathing rippled like after a pebble was thrown in still waters. With much of his body hidden away, the missing nin was protected from Iruka’s prying eyes, but his body undeniably tensed, went rigid. 

Iruka acted as he had when confronting Kakashi’s injured body. His hand moved on its own, sweeping down the man’s arm, slowing over the red swirling ANBU tattoo. Although Kakashi could have pushed him away, even killed him on the spot, the missing nin did no such thing. Instead, the man…

The man tucked his head into Iruka’s chest, burying himself over Iruka’s heart.

The world was soft and still, and Kakashi’s silver hair was all Iruka could see. 

But he could feel the nin clinging to him, stealing his strength, drinking his care. 

It was tragically clear when Kakashi Hatake started to cry.

His shoulders moved only minutely; he kept himself almost entirely contained. He was eerily discreet in his sorrow, not making any sort of sound. Yet Kakashi’s fingers desperately mined Iruka’s skin as if seeking sanctuary, and he did not respond at all when Iruka stroked his back.

Soon Iruka turned to reassurance, speaking to him in a sensitive tone. He told Kakashi Hatake, the missing nin so wretchedly embracing him, about his parents, dead long ago, how he called for them so many years earlier, when the Nine-Tailed Fox burned the village and crushed shinobi under his claws. 

Iruka’s voice broke as he admitted into Kakashi’s water-soaked hair, “I still call for them in my nightmares. It’s like I’m still being dragged away from them, kicking and screaming… it feels like I could still save them, if only I was allowed to fight for them.”

Kakashi’s eyes slowly rose to Iruka’s. The Sharingan was lit blood-red and black. 

Tears streamed down both sides of the missing nin’s face… 

Iruka lost all of his words. 

He could only stare.

Kakashi’s long fingers brushed over the edge of Iruka’s scar… and then drifted upward… 

He brushed the corner of Iruka’s eye where tears had been brimming. They freely overflowed once touched, and Iruka found himself flinching, not from fear but the intensity of his own pain. 

The subsequent kiss was barely real. It was so ephemeral that it might have been dreamt.

But soon Kakashi resumed his spot resting against Iruka’s heart, and he wept no more. 

It was strangely easy to fall asleep while holding a legend of his village and caressing his hair. 

Morning came too soon: it arrived horrifically with Kakashi shaking him awake. Instinct drove Iruka to grab at the man’s arms, but the missing nin was too fast for him, so he ended up being held aloft over the bed by Kakashi’s ferocious dual-handed grip. Hot prickling anxiety tore through him and sweat ran down his face as he stared deep into Kakashi’s dangerous dissimilar eyes.

“They will kill you if you help me,” he hissed, a livid darkness behind each of his words.

Even though his sanity screamed at him to stay still, shut up, surrender – instead Iruka found his face screwing up into a furious scowl, and he spat out, utterly unmindful of death’s embrace, “I don’t know what you are, but you _aren’t_ a missing nin. I’m not just going to –”

Kakashi threw him across the bed.

The man was dressed in his makeshift uniform again: he hadn’t washed anything, so the whole thing stank of bloodsplatter and hung with slender shreds of human meat. His left hand held his scratched hitai-ate; his entire face was laid bare since Iruka had torn apart his mask. 

Then Kakashi produced the bloody kunai that had been slammed into his ribcage – and he flung it with disturbing accuracy, striking the windowsill over Iruka’s bed. The **thunk** was so close to Iruka’s head that his eardrums rang with a wooden hollow sound. His whole body seized up, understanding the dire warning, completely disregarding every pleasant thing he’d ever experienced with the other shinobi. 

His gaze stayed fixed on Kakashi Hatake, who seemingly poured upward as he rose out of his standard slouch and stood at his full height at the end of Iruka’s bed. The man was watching him with both eyes again, his stolen Sharingan and the black Hatake eye inherited from his father. There was violence boiling within both of them: it was impossible to tell if such venomous promise was there for Iruka, or for Konoha, or for everyone in the world. 

There wasn’t any killing intent asphyxiating Iruka.

No…

This time, Kakashi kept everything perfectly intact. 

Clean. Cold. Efficient. 

All encasing his cruel warning. 

His vicious voice gave Iruka frostbite… numbed his nerves… broke his very heart.

“Your parents left you. Naruto will leave you, too,” Kakashi announced, neither blinking, nor looking away from Iruka, not reacting as Iruka’s face fell and his shoulders slumped. If anything, the nin’s tone darkened as he concluded, his own expression smoothing over with ice, becoming a flat sheet of frozen water, “There’s an emptiness in you, and no one will ever fill it.”

He stepped back off the bed, easily landing on his feet, without breaking eye contact.

As Iruka’s eyes began to burn with tears, Kakashi looked sharply away from him.

A second later, the missing nin was halfway out the window – but then he glanced back at Iruka in a single frighteningly swift movement, and – and –

Somehow, Iruka had mustered the strength to watch Kakashi’s departure – and he was glad he did because –

He saw it.

Kakashi’s scarred cheek.

_… he’s crying again._

Still, the man flickered away in silence, leaving Iruka alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kudos, subscriptions, and comments.
> 
> You truly make life lovely.
> 
> ____

Iruka did not stay alone.

He filled his days with pre-genin, his evenings with work colleagues, and his nights with Naruto. Instead of sinking into depression, he resolutely turned away from misery. The cold bite of Kakashi’s words kept him awake sometimes, but he was determined to not let the cruel comment destroy him. Although his schedule was overly packed with people and places, Iruka knew himself well enough: if he allowed his mind to wander, he might remember…

_… does he cry by himself?_

Iruka cried twice after Kakashi left. He was alone in the bathtub the first time. The other nin – whoever he was, whatever he was – had cleaned the bathroom before he had vanished, but he hadn’t done the most meticulous work, which Iruka only discovered when he tiredly sought out a fresh towel for his forehead. As he stretched his arm out to the shelf, he suddenly noticed…

_Oh - there’s blood._

It was only a spot, a tiny speck. The little circle of dark red was all by itself, low on the wall.

Unthinking, Iruka ran his fingertip along the curve of Kakashi’s old blood. The man had been so wounded, the bathroom had looked like a scene of slaughter. Yet… now it was back to normal, as if nothing had happened and Kakashi had never drifted through Iruka’s life. 

But… he had. He had swept into Iruka’s world. They shared kisses, they’d laid in bed together.

_He wasn’t a dream,_ Iruka reminded himself, marveling at the certainty of the experience as he touched the bloodspot.

… Somewhere outside Konoha was Kakashi Hatake, in a tree or a cave, by a stream or the road. Maybe he was standing in the shadow of the village gates. Maybe he was killing shinobi right now. Maybe he was saving Konoha from creatures unknown… from violent forces intent on bloodshed but finding electric death instead. Maybe he was alone, too, also thinking about…

Iruka dropped his head in his hands and started crying. 

His bedroom was no longer a haven. Even though Naruto was surprised by Iruka’s unexpected late-night appearance, the boy was endearingly receptive of his sensei. The excitement of Iruka’s sleepover never seemed to cease, no matter how many times he stayed over. After two weeks, Iruka was practically living in Naruto’s apartment. His back ached from the flat futon on the floor, but he refused Naruto’s nervous invitation to take the bed or even share the bed. 

There was no need for that. Iruka could sleep alone. He’d done so for a year… more, really.

Just because he had one night with Kakashi – well, that – it wasn’t that special –

Oh, but it was.

His dreams were cruel. 

They reminded him of what he was missing. 

Kakashi’s black eye and blazing Sharingan, both watering, as the man stared at Iruka in the sort of tender, traumatic moment that could have been the start of something. His silver hair, wet from the shower, where he’d cleaned himself of death and blood, and the softness of those strands all the way down to their broken frayed ends. His muscular arm, shielded by Iruka’s own shirt, hiding the ANBU tattoo in its faded red infamy. His gentle breathing throughout the night, matching Iruka’s… almost breath for breath…

The second time Iruka cried – it was stupid – and he was so embarrassed by it, he hid in a closet by the mission desk, barricaded the door, and wept into the crook of his arm, struggling to stay quiet.

It really was such a silly thing – just Naruto’s sensei Yamato returning from a mission – the jōnin had smiled slightly at him. He’d said Iruka was quite the shinobi for withstanding the three in his classroom along with all the rest - and then invited him out to ramen.

Iruka had been surprised and accepted straightaway.

Yamato simply remarked, “Thank you for your hard work,” before departing with ease.

So Iruka went to the supply closet and cried like he’d never been complimented before.

It was bad timing: it had been exactly two weeks of silence since Kakashi’s cold dismissal. 

Even though Iruka had been speaking with plenty of shinobi, from pre-genin children up to the Third Hokage, he hadn’t admitted anything to any of them. 

He’d said nothing about his private feelings, not his worries about his place in the world, nor what his confusion about what he would do, could do, should do in the future. 

He knew – every night he spent at Naruto’s - as he fell asleep on the futon a few feet from his brother-son-student – that he’d be alone soon enough. 

He’d never marry; he wouldn’t date much, if at all; he wouldn’t have any children of his own.

He would work hard for Konoha… and one day he would die for her.

Yamato’s polite “Thank you for your hard work” – from Naruto’s new sensei, and, oh, the boy would undoubtedly have several more, all increasingly better skilled than Iruka – that… that was just too much… at the wrong time… hitting the worst and weakest spot in Iruka’s heart.

He had worked hard, and he did work hard – but… few people ever said that to him.

Ramen with Yamato was unusual, mainly because the shinobi himself was unusual. Apparently, he had been a jōnin for some time, but his missions were so high-ranked that he went more often to the Hokage than the desk chūnin. His transition to sensei had been the idea of the Third himself: Hiruzen had thought Yamato could use a break from the hardships of missions.

Yamato was certainly more amusing when he got drunk. Then the jōnin got a little sloppier, and he smiled wider, and he lamented Naruto much more. That part had especially tickled Iruka and brought him a bit out of his depression; he shared with Yamato all the ridiculous pranks that the boy had played on him, the other students, the teachers, and the shinobi of the village. 

Yamato’s dark almond-shaped eyes were intense and focused even in his drunkenness, but his movements were looser, and Iruka was strangely, painfully, unsettlingly reminded of…

He was drunk that night when Naruto told him… in the apartment so dark and dizzy and warm…

“We have a big mission tomorrow, Iruka-sensei. I’m – I’m sort of scared! Isn’t that stupid?”

Iruka was quick to reassure him, no, this was Naruto’s first C-rank mission, it was kind of scary! But, hey, Iruka had been nervous on his first C-rank, too, and he was way too talkative about it, making Naruto laugh and ask why he was so red-faced, and wait is Iruka-sensei drunk right now?? And, of course, it was impossible to lie, so Iruka ruffled the life out of Naruto’s fluffy blonde mop of hair, told the boy to go to sleep, and then he clumsily packed Naruto’s bag for him for the next day… for his first C-ranked mission… ha… this day had really come, after all.

The hangover of the next day was so very bad, but Iruka made sure to escort Naruto to the gates and say good luck and wave farewell at Team Seven as they walked away from Konoha. As much as he had let loose the night before, Yamato was quite serious in the daytime, giving Iruka a formal nod. Then he guided his genin on their escort mission to the Land of Waves. 

At the end of a long day – exhaustion was running him into the ground - Iruka was struggling to erase the enormous black chalkboard in his empty classroom – everyone but him had gone home already - when someone spoke up behind him.

“Iruka.”

It was a strange semi-muffled voice… He looked back with the piece of chalk still in his hand. 

An ANBU. 

The porcelain mask was the clearest sign of the elite organization. It was mostly white with bright red painted thick around the eyes and cheeks in four curving lines, two each side. Two small animal-styled ears stuck up in the ceramic, drawing Iruka’s eyes to the dark grey hair of the man behind the mask. He was wearing an abnormal ANBU uniform, one with long sleeves; most of the time, they showed their arms and, as a consequence, their compulsory tattoos. 

… Kakashi still had his tattoo… Iruka had seen the mark in the bath amidst old war wounds.

Curling lines of ink sunken into his skin from childhood...

_Don’t think about him._

“ANBU-san?” Iruka asked aloud, forcing his way out of tortured thoughts. 

But then - he suddenly - horribly - wondered - could the ANBU know about him working with Kakashi? - him helping Kakashi after his fight? - him sleeping beside a missing nin - ? 

Should he prepare to defend himself?

No.

No, if the ANBU wanted him dead, he’d already be dead.

This ANBU stood stiff and on alert in Iruka’s classroom: he was well-armed with katana, tanto, and kunai, and his appearance screamed efficiency and lethality woven into one. 

_… and yet Kakashi looked so ruined. He wore blood and scars like armor._

He shook his head, trying to chase the man from his mind.

_Iruka Umino, you have to **stop** thinking about him…!_

He flinched at his own secret self-admonition. 

He was so stupid. He really was empty inside. He just couldn’t escape Kakashi...

_Kakashi and his warmth…_

The man was neither a missing nin nor a ghost, but he was haunting Iruka, and he was painfully missing from Iruka’s life.

In front of him, the ANBU silently took off his mask with one hand… and his wig with the other.

Iruka dropped the chalk in his hand. 

It clattered noisily to the ground as he beheld Kakashi Hatake standing before him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all leave such wonderful comments.
> 
> What else is there to do but write?
> 
> _____

The outfit fit Kakashi perfectly: it was tailored to his form. The armguards glided over his skin. The grey jacket clung to his chest, protecting vital organs. This was not stolen attire. It was…

It was Kakashi’s – and his alone. 

The whole thing was clean, crisp, and cutting-edge. These weren’t old garments from a decade ago – they were new updated ones – even as an outsider to the organization, Iruka recognized small improvements over time – the jacket armor was thicker, the boots upgraded – all from the last few years -

Before Iruka could ask anything, Kakashi cut into the silence, cool and concise:

“Don’t ask any questions.”

Iruka stepped forward out of his control. His eyes were stuck on Kakashi’s: the man had both open, his own and the Uchiha Sharingan, unabashedly absorbing the sight of Iruka before him. 

Iruka’s face felt flushed. He was hot all over. He couldn’t understand – he wasn’t understanding this – whatever this was – but – but this – this was Kakashi – he was back, he was here –

The nin wore no mask; his own expression was as blank as a newly bought canvas. He stayed in formation, his back straight. His slouch was so gone, it was as if he had never relaxed, not even once in his life. His weapons weren’t the rotating collection that Iruka had been cataloguing from their past encounters. There weren’t any ragged patches on his frame, nor any dirt or debris, not the smallest spot of blood, not a single golden bruise.

But his scar was still there, sliding down his face like a permanent line of tears. His barely-seen black beauty mark made Iruka recall the soft confusing night after Mizuki’s betrayal… the bloody mess of a nin in his bathtub, crying out for the dead, dressed in nothing but scars. His Sharingan was the same as before: tirelessly staring straight through Iruka into his mortal soul. 

His intensity level stayed high and merciless, but - 

Kakashi was acting like a badly created clone.

Like he couldn’t move - or talk – or breathe.

And yet… 

_He hasn’t looked away from me since I turned around._

His heart pounding, Iruka took another step forward; he lifted his hand out to the other man.

His motion stirred Kakashi into action. Suddenly the nin walked forward two paces but then stopped so forcefully his whole body shuddered. Concern and alarm coursing through him, Iruka questioned if something horrible was happening, had been happening, and maybe he was accidentally caught up in something more than a mystery about a missing nin, but something that could the end the village, something that could ruin Konoha and all her people. His brain was ticking through all the recent trauma of the village, wondering where Kakashi could fit into the disorder of shinobi life, when he fell out of his whirlwind of thoughts.

All of a sudden, the surreal shinobi confessed to him, his expression breaking into sorrow.

“I’m sorry.”

Iruka’s feet pulled him forward, but this time –

This time Kakashi also moved towards him.

They met in the middle of the classroom.

A thousand questions demanded immediate answers, and his skin burned with shame and excitement, but Iruka could do nothing else but indulge his most primitive instincts. He reached up to hold Kakashi’s face and pull the man towards him, but Kakashi was already leaning down as his own hands sought out Iruka’s back. His right flew up to the spot precisely over Iruka’s scar, the massive one from defending Naruto. His left dragged Iruka closer, bringing their hips together, colliding cloth and armor. 

Kakashi’s heat was unreal, catching Iruka on fire, making his facial scar feel molten. 

When they kissed this time, there was no barrier in the way.

Iruka was just as insistent as Kakashi, just as passionate. Barely a second passed before both deepened the kiss at the same exact time. Their tongues rolled against one another, insatiable and impatient. 

As Iruka scratched backwards into Kakashi’s silver hair, relishing the reality of their kiss and their bodies meeting, the other man dropped his left hand to Iruka’s clothed thigh – and hauled Iruka’s right leg upward, forcing him to lean even more into Kakashi. 

The position was so obscene, so close to sex - Iruka felt like lava flow, glowing red-hot and destroying everything in his path. 

He gripped a handful of Kakashi’s hair with one hand, while he restrained the nin with the other, keeping his fingers clenched on the back of Kakashi’s exposed neck.

He was unmindful of bruises.

_No, I **want** to leave bruises._

He could feel Kakashi’s hard arousal against his own… but somehow his dark desperate moan surprised them both. 

Suddenly, Kakashi stared down at him from only an inch away. His voice came out an octave deeper, lust running through his tenor, but his words weren’t about intimacy, they instead chilled Iruka to his very core.

“I have to go. I may not come back.”

It was like his volcanic rock crashed into the cold ocean, turning everything freezing black.

Iruka did not let him go; he held desperately onto Kakashi as if he had claws. He was wide-eyed, his lips parted in shock, his scarred expression wrought with dismay.

So strangely, Kakashi was not empty-faced as they gazed at one another, so close together. 

Instead, the man seemed so pained, it seemed like he might be suffering from a million unseen wounds. His half-lidden eyes were creased in distress, his silver brows pinched together. His long facial scar was nearly wrinkled in his torment. 

The words were desperate, and he didn’t think them through. Nonetheless, Iruka ordered Kakashi, shoving their bodies together with enough force that the man unstably swayed in place:

“You _will_ come back. You belong in Konoha with me.”

The sudden admission was so startling that Iruka felt his muscles betray him - and his skeleton start to fall apart.

Without any effort, Kakashi held him up.

Overwhelmed by his own lovesick demand, Iruka crushed his mortified face into Kakashi’s grey flak jacket. He had no idea who this person was – if he was actually a missing nin – a lifelong ANBU – a crazy serial killer – a ghostly guardian of the gates – or something else entirely. He could hear his own words ringing in his head: they were panicked and passionate, they were achingly honest and sentimental, they were utter fucking nonsense. 

_I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid!_

Kakashi wrestled Iruka off him so he could marry their hands.

Unable to meet the man’s incredible eyes, Iruka stared down at their fingers slotted together.

Kakashi’s kiss was purposefully soft as he brushed his lips over the old scar across Iruka’s nose.

Then he whispered four simple words into Iruka’s ear...

“I’ll keep him safe.”

Iruka jerked up his head so he could see Kakashi’s face.

Pure confusion, shock, and horror crashed together and became soul-shaking disbelief. 

The other nin dropped Iruka’s hands; he put on his mask and disguise in the same second.

Then he blew through the hand formations for a Body Flicker jutsu, vanishing entirely.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kind words.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> ____

Haunted.

Iruka was haunted.

He lived in a daze. 

He taught in a daze.

He worked in a daze. 

But… his dreams were dark and full of storms. Fox-crafted flames used to saturate his sleep, but now only dark clouds upset his nights. It was the unknown come alive, soaking him in sweat. There was no contacting anyone about Kakashi Hatake. He was a missing nin to Konoha; no one would be able to explain to Iruka his existence or the meaning behind his mysterious words. 

So Iruka dreamt of thunderstorms… of electric light crackling blue amid black skies…

Worse, there were no updates about Naruto and Team Seven. The mission seemed to be taking an unusually long time, but Iruka wasn’t privy to any changes in the plan, so he had to swallow down his anxiety with bitter sake every night. Alcohol made his dreams become nightmares, but…

But what else was there to do?

He wasn’t really Naruto’s family.

He wasn’t Kakashi’s… Kakashi’s anything. 

_But what did he mean when he said…?_

Iruka’s heart ached. 

He heard the words again.

_ ** “I’ll keep him safe.”** _

His thoughts whirled on, no matter where he was. Serving tea to the Third Hokage – handing at scrolls at the mission desk – teaching pre-genin about chakra pathways – staring at his bedroom ceiling as the moon shone through the window -

_… who is ‘him’ in the ‘I’ll keep him safe’? Could that have been someone else, trying to reassure me that they’d keep Kakashi safe? Was that a shinobi using a Transformation jutsu to look like Kakashi in an ANBU uniform? Who would that even be? A friend of his? A companion to his current crime spree? A new partner, an old partner? Was it someone impersonating an ANBU, or was that a true Konoha ANBU?_

Iruka found himself walking by the training fields where he met Maito Gai.

He leaned back on the truth of things: only one man in Konoha knew Kakashi Hatake.

But he couldn’t confront Gai-sensei. The shinobi was truly magnificent as he brought his genin team into top-tier echelons of training. During the high summer heat, the young teens seemed sweat-stricken, but they constantly scorched the soil with bright jutsus and glorious weaponry. 

Iruka’s mind was full of static when he watched Team Gai train… 

And he started doing it every evening. He’d found a bench to observe them from afar; he knew when the three tiny nin would arrive. Their sensei frequently appeared late: he emerged of nowhere, with Five Gates already open, his body burning green and his eyes white as sunlight. The genin would instantly switch to the defensive, turning away from their self-assigned tasks, but they were always beaten back, beaten down. Soon there would be a profound lecture on hard work and determination, on believing in one’s self, on never giving up. Inevitably, it would lead to three-man teamwork exercises, then individual personalized training, and finally –

Finally, the young shinobi would disperse, leaving Gai alone on the field.

Then he trained by himself.

At some point during the jōnin’s self-imposed hour-long labor… Iruka would leave.

Days passed… then weeks…

_ ** “I’ll keep him safe.”** _

Iruka stared at the bathroom floor where Kakashi had once laid unconscious, his blood fleeing his form like his own substance was deathly afraid of him. 

_Was that a clone of Kakashi? Did he send an unreal version of himself to apologize to me? Did he mean it to kiss me? Is that why its expression was more emotional, why our kiss turned so lewd? … Why would it use a Body Flicker jutsu, if it was a clone? Was it designed to do that, to run away like Kakashi Hatake does so often when we’re together? Where was the real Kakashi, then? What was he doing? Where is he now?_

His nightmares increasingly included being dragged kicking and screaming away from Naruto. The boy was desperate, screaming for Iruka, for his help, for his intervention, but Iruka couldn’t speak, he couldn’t scream, he couldn’t howl out how much he wanted to protect his son –

_No. Don’t do that. Don’t think of Naruto like that._

_We’re not a family._

Maito Gai implemented extraordinarily odd techniques with his genin. Late in the second week of his distant observation, Iruka realized that the sensei’s miniature – clad in the same skin-tight spandex – was also wearing immense leg-weights under his orange legwarmers. The epiphany was unsettling, if only because it was obvious Rock Lee had no natural talent for ninjutsu or genjutsu… his sole reliance on taijutsu would leave him uniquely vulnerable on the battlefield.

As the Hyūga and kunoichi engaged in combat on the side, Maito Gai threw fists, kicks, and objects at the diminutive version of himself. 

The boy had handled it as best he could, a rather admirable sight, but then Gai had rushed forward, grabbed him by the legs, ripped both sets of weights out, and tossed them high, high up in the air. He shouted his order, his great voice insanely clear: “Catch them, Lee!” 

Lee caught one, his arms dropping to the ground from the force of their freefall.

He missed the second set.

The absurdly dense weights created a crater in the field, catching Lee in the collapsing rubble.

Iruka’s bench shook; his distracted thoughts disappeared at once. He was standing, he was moving down towards the genin team, he was thinking about Naruto struggling desperately, bleeding, suffering, dying somewhere out the world without Iruka’s guidance and care. 

But –

But Neji and Tenten both pulled Lee out less than a second later.

Gai looked directly up at him… at Iruka.

… Iruka literally ran home.

There was no reasonable explanation for stalking Maito Gai – except that the jōnin was Iruka’s last living link to Kakashi Hatake.

_Don’t cry. **Don’t cry.**_

It had been a month. Iruka could do nothing but live… and wait… and worry.

Nothing from Kakashi. Nothing from Naruto.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Not one thing.

Nothing.

_ ** “I’ll keep him safe.”** _

The thought had occurred to him several times before, but he faced it once again:

_… could the ‘him’ be… could it be Naruto?_

_Kakashi was interested in Naruto the whole time. He said he didn’t kill me because ‘Naruto needs a family’ – well, he’s a fucking liar – he wanted my ‘warmth’ too – he wanted a kiss before he went off to die, deserting me and leaving scarred and scared and confused about what any of this was, except that it was a betrayal of the village that I’ve served all my life, that my parents died defending, and -_

Iruka was hunched over while sitting on the bench. His arms were bent over his knees, his head held down. He only realized that he was shaking his head in seething frustration when –

“It’s the springtime of youth.”

He turned his head to witness Maito Gai. The menacing nin was standing behind him and the bench. Yet his dark eyes were not fixed on Iruka. He was instead observing his own genin team, down below on the crater-split field, from where Iruka had watched the last few weeks.

Iruka followed Gai’s gaze: he found the three young teens… acting like… they were just kids.

The genin were enjoying shinobi-level horseplay. 

There was a distinct difference in the intensity level as the three bounded about the wide-open space, exchanging playful blows and throwing shuriken and kunai at each other. The smaller version of Maito Gai was grinning so brightly that Iruka felt like a sad little grey cloud. The kunoichi was laughing at his antics. She was clearly fond of her teammates, obvious by how she restrained her summoned weapons and by how she jokingly pulled both Lee and Neji’s hair. 

Even Neji Hyūga, who Iruka had seen nearly kill Lee and Tenten on several occasions now –

Even he was smiling softly.

Iruka was mystified. 

Maito Gai clarified with disturbing simplicity: 

“The future burns bright. I will never lose hope in my comrades.”

The jōnin had opened no gates, but his eyes shone anyway as he met Iruka’s stare.

“You shouldn’t either, Iruka-sensei.”

Maito Gai’s massive hand landed on Iruka’s shoulder and crunched down in a truly strange gesture… It took Iruka a slow painful moment to understand the man was being supportive. 

Then Gai declared: 

“Naruto is back. He is at the hospital.”

Iruka’s eyes watered as his heart swelled. He could not absorb the relief flooding his system. 

Suddenly, he was across the village, he was inside the hospital, he was standing in Naruto’s room, he was embracing his laughing delighted son, he was utterly mad with happiness. 

Even as Naruto started describing his month-long mission, and Iruka deliriously thought he shouldn’t be revealing so much, but he was so thrilled that his family was finally back together –

“And then a missing nin showed up!”

Iruka’s world froze.

He saw a vision of Kakashi Hatake in his rainbow patchwork armor… and in his ANBU uniform.

_Kakashi went after Naruto._

But then – but then - !

“His name was Zabuza, and there was this other ninja, Haku, and they fought us, Iruka-sensei!”

_Oh._

_Oh, it's… it’s not Kakashi._

_… how embarrassing. Of course there’s missing nin everywhere._

“And THEN there was THIS OTHER missing nin! But he didn’t fight us – he fought Zabuza and Haku – he was so weird, he was wearing rags, but he had a Sharingan! You know about that, right? The Sharingan, like Sasuke has? And – he also did this crazy electricity thing with his hand – that’s how he… But, you know, he didn’t really say anything, except when he showed up, he told Yamato-sensei – ‘I’m here the save the day, kouhai’ – like he was straight out of an adventure book!”

Iruka knew he said something in response, but he didn’t know what. He recalled Naruto grinning and saying a few other things – and they hugged again – then Iruka left the hospital.

He found Yamato leaving the Hokage Residence.

Looking pleased and surprised, the jōnin-sensei tried to greet him with a “Good evening, Iru---”

But Iruka was on fire. His eyes were burnt red. His soul was spitting sparks.

“What is your senpai doing?” he demanded, his voice scalding, his body storming. 

**“Who exactly is Kakashi Hatake?”**

Instead of answering, Yamato hooked Iruka’s head under his right arm, creating a guillotine.

Blackness overtook Iruka as if drowning in deep ocean waters.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do let me know what you think...
> 
> And, as always, please enjoy.
> 
> ___

There was only cool darkness.

Iruka practiced against genjutsu; he knew traps. This was either one or the other. His skin pricked with goosebumps… The fear of death spread across his flesh. Four smooth sides constricted his body, imprisoning him into total immobility.

But he could still hear…

“We can agree they’re together.”

_… Yamato-sensei?_

“Well, I’m not persuaded! He’s always got his nose in that pervy book. Would he even know what to do with a real person? Has he ever been with anyone else? What about Maito Gai?”

Instantly, Yamato countered the second voice, sounding curt and displeased.

“No, they’re not together. They never have been.”

But the second entity wasn’t having it. It seemed like a man; his tone was disturbingly light. His pitch was flighty, his antics exaggerated and dramatic. He hummed a few beats to a popular song before noting wistfully, “I just don’t know. I think it’s less likely he’s having an affair – maybe the sensei’s a double agent? That would be clever, right, get the on the jinchūriki’s good side?”

“We know Iruka-sensei isn’t a traitor,” Yamato flatly denied. 

_… am I not?_

Trapped in darkness, Iruka pictured himself holding metal plyers over an unconscious bloodied missing nin in his bathtub. The poisoned needle - and the kunai – once embedded in Kakashi’s vein and muscle – they were tucked away in Iruka’s bottom drawer beside family heirlooms. 

His hands curled into fists against the walls; he felt suffocated by his disservice to Konoha.

“Just because he’s acting interested – it doesn’t mean they’re sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

_… uh… that’s a bit… childish…_

“I saw them kiss.”

_A third person?!_ A woman by the sound of it. Her voice was steady, monotone. She spoke with efficiency and without emotion. Her declaration sent wild hot embarrassment flying through Iruka: he abruptly realized that the people in question were – the ones that Yamato and the other two were talking about – the three of them were discussing – !

While Yamato replied with an incredulous **“What?”** the other man nearly squealed in delight, asking at once in an excited rush, “What?! When? Where? How have you not told us?” 

He must have turned slightly to Yamato, because his voice became quieter, as if making an aside, as he keenly promised, “I would tell you immediately. Everything. Every single detail.”

The woman took a moment to respond, but she sounded as cool and collected as before.

“Before he went to the Land of Waves, he stopped to see the sensei at the Academy.”

She paused, then added, her dispassionate level tone unchanged:

“They kissed; it was lustful.”

As the unknown man huffed out an impressed “ooh, oh, oh!” and clapped his hands in glee, Yamato merely said, his voice remarkably tired, “… then let’s agree they’re together.”

Inside the trap, Iruka badly wanted to cover his face in shame. He was beyond mortified to hear that they’d been seen! He had been so relieved in the aftermath, after Kakashi had disappeared, that all the other teachers were gone. He’d been left aroused; it was skin-crawlingly terrible to learn that someone had watched their kiss and had seen its effect on Iruka.

_… plus… ‘lustful’? like we’re degenerate teenagers?_

Suddenly and with excessive exuberance, the man announced, slapping his hands together, “Oh! That explains why he ran into town after the rogue samurai attack. I totally lost him – his trail went dead, like he didn’t want my help – but I didn’t think it was because he was having his lover patch him up. Huh, so our pervy old Copy Nin has a boyfriend! I can’t believe it!” 

His effusive swoon was over-the-top, but really the whole thing was making Iruka overheat with embarrassment, unable to understand people so vividly and lavishly talking about his love life.

He was even more unprepared when Yamato withdrew the wooden box he was trapped inside.

Yamato was definitely Yamato, in that he was the correct shape, and he had just been talking, but what stood before Iruka was not the regularly-dressed sensei in flak jacket and shinobi blues. Instead, the man was entirely garbed as ANBU. It was the unusual uniform matching what Iruka had seen with Kakashi at the Academy, its long skin-tight sleeves covering up the tattoo. But Yamato’s stance was familiar, although stiffer and more annoyed with the current situation. He wore a standard ANBU mask of white porcelain – but thick red curves ran around his eyes, and dark pointed bands, four on each side, symmetrically sought out the center.

On his right… a willowy, impossibly tall ANBU with pale-blonde hair… the absurdly thrilled man. 

His mask had bright red covering much of its white ceramic forehead. Three slender black lines stretched from the cat-like nose across the cheeks in the style of animal whiskers. 

On his left… a stunningly average ANBU with short brown hair… except for - except for -

_Ugh, no, no, no - are those spiders swarming all over her mask??_

Primal fear made Iruka recoil away from her in particular, and Yamato immediately shot a dirty look at the male ANBU beside him. He accused the other man, irritated and disbelieving, “You didn’t sedate him correctly. He shouldn’t be this alert.”

The visual matched the sound: the long thin ANBU shrugged and brought both his hands in the air, making an over-exaggerated ‘sorry-not-sorry’ gesture as he answered Yamato candidly, “I was worried Kakashi might hurt me if he found I injured the sensei. You’re less scary than he is.”

The first usage of Kakashi Hatake’s name killed all of Iruka’s fears.

The mortified heat fled his body at once.

His resolve became a steel sword, cutting through terror of the unknown.

“Where is he?” Iruka demanded, clenching his hands so tight, his fingernails cut into his palms. 

** “Where is Kakashi?”**

He could barely keep his balance between the ANBU’s sedative, being restrained by Yamato’s wooden coffin, and listening to three strange elite shinobi discuss his sexuality, but – but –

When the three ANBU didn’t immediately respond to him, Iruka stared into Yamato’s dark almond-shaped eyes through the tri-colored mask and excruciatingly enunciated each word, “Please, Yamato-sensei. I need to know if Kakashi’s okay. You have to tell me. I have to know.”

The two other nin looked at Yamato… all three of them were waiting on his response.

Horrifically, Iruka felt his eyes watering. He almost never cried in front of others, but – but –

He refused to touch his scarred cheek as the first desperate tear curved down his face. 

Instead, he took a step towards the ANBU and repeated, voice low, breaking, begging –

“Please.”

Yamato stepped silently aside, revealing – revealing –

“Oh, Kakashi,” Iruka heard himself gasp aloud, pained but relieved, and he brushed past the ANBU like they were curtains in the way of his sunlight, and he fell to his knees in front of –

Kakashi Hatake, dressed in shinobi blues, laid out on a futon, under a heavy blanket, on the tatami mat floor.

His cloth mask was what Iruka remembered from nearly a decade ago: it was a blue high-necked extension of his shirt, covering more than half of his face and catching on his nose. The long slight scar was mostly available to view, but the Sharingan was closed away, because –

_Is he… sleeping?_

Although his desperation was driving him to shake the man awake, Iruka braved through his crazy. Instead, he swept his gaze over the shinobi, trying to assess through blanket and clothes if anything was missing, if anything had gone terribly wrong. There was nothing to suggest Kakashi had lost an arm – or a leg – or sustained some awful wound that would disable him. 

Kakashi’s face was clean and clear without bruises or scratch-marks or new scars. 

His silver hair was peculiarly shower-fresh. 

He smelled faintly of…

_… does he smell like my soap?_

Iruka realized he was looking suspiciously at Kakashi’s unconscious body. He was almost certain the scent of rosemary and sage was heavy in the man’s skin and hair… the intensely-scented concoction that Iruka bought himself at a special booth in the market as an occasional treat. 

_Did… he steal my soap? … did he go out and buy the same…?_

His hand betrayed him. 

Instead of staying gentle, Iruka reached over and cupped Kakashi’s unscarred cheek.

Less than a second later, Kakashi’s dark eye fluttered open - but stayed half-lidded as usual. 

Yet what was visible of the man’s expression - what was not concealed by his mask – 

Relief and joy wove together on Kakashi’s scarred face; his eye curved along with his hidden smile. 

The movement was shaky and slow, but, oh so unexpectedly, Kakashi pressed his hand against Iruka’s holding his cheek, and then truly satisfied words seemingly stumbled out of him as he murmured to Iruka, “You don’t need to cry. Naruto’s safe… and I’ve come back to you.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. 
> 
> I present you a few answers... They lead to new questions, of course.
> 
> But there's love here, too.
> 
> ___

Iruka cried anyway; he just couldn’t obey Kakashi.

But the other man didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he slipped his fingers in between Iruka’s, interlocking their hands and keeping them held soft against his own face. With the Sharingan invisible behind his eyelid, Kakashi seemed like an ordinary man with a mask and a scar, slowly waking from sleep. The shinobi’s single-eyed gaze seemed a little glassy as he watched Iruka rather embarrassingly sniffle and snivel and cry from only a few inches away. Neverthless, Kakashi stayed still, his half-hidden expression warm and fond, even as Iruka felt so mortified with his own behavior he thought he might die.

Then –

Out of nowhere –

A sudden terrific sound behind them – coming from – coming from –

The tall male ANBU skidded across the wooden flooring of the living room; he’d apparently been catapulted from outside the building _back inside_. His porcelain mask was tied so tightly that it didn’t fly off his face, but his limbs were much clumsier after he was sent soaring. The ANBU ended up in a jumbled mess, crumbled against the wall, unmoving and unconscious. 

Iruka horrendously understood he’d been so distracted – he hadn’t realized – he hadn’t realized - !

Yamato and the other ANBU weren’t in the room anymore.

_They weren’t even in the building._

And…

Ah… fuck. 

They were fighting outside.

Immediately, Iruka moved to protect Kakashi, angling himself towards the papered wood-frame sliding door, currently open to the outside. However, just as swiftly, Kakashi’s hand caught his wrist and dragged him backwards with surprising strength. Feeling terrified and unable to control his frenzied heartbeat, Iruka looked at the missing nin, expecting to find him pale and weak.

In contrast, Kakashi appeared unworried. His black eye was calmly considering the door. 

Without looking back at Iruka, he requested in a simple but polite style, “Can you help me outside?”

In a truly disassociate moment, Iruka obeyed Kakashi's second order, helping draw the other man from under the blanket and then up to his feet. He wiped away every single thought from his mind as he adjusted Kakashi against his own torso, pulling the nin’s arm over his shoulders and supporting him around his waist. It was unbelievable to see just how casual Kakashi looked in this moment: he was dressed in his old teenage clothing, his high-necked shinobi blue shirt and pants, and seemed like he was a lazy tired thing not wanting to be bothered by irritating reality. 

Kakashi’s feet were bare and dragging as Iruka directed them towards the open door.

Right before they made it outside, there was a now-familiar sound.

Iruka looked hard right, past Kakashi, as they both exited onto the wooden walkway.

_The female ANBU was beaten unconscious, too._

She was also utterly horrifying after being knocked out: her summoned spiders were in turmoil, crawling across her ANBU-uniformed figure and climbing onto the nearest support beam in a writhing mass. 

She was so repulsively distracting, somehow Iruka didn’t notice what was right in front of them.

However, Kakashi was alert enough to respond appropriately.

“Good to see you, Gai.”

Instantly, Iruka spun to see –

Encased in his own blazing green chakra, Maito Gai was remorselessly but excruciatingly slowly breaking through Yamato’s defensive shield. The sturdy latticework of wood rose from the ANBU’s arm, which he was holding shakily by his porcelain-masked face. The strength of the jōnin was disturbing: he was exuding real effort to destroy Yamato’s wood defense, but he was also clearly not working at maximum capacity in the struggle. Although the two other ANBU were down, obviously having been defeated by Gai, they weren’t dead or even bloodied, both of which seemed within Gai's capability. 

Both Gai and Yamato looked over at Kakashi at the same time.

Behind his mask, the ANBU might have been relieved, but the emotion didn’t manifest on ceramic. 

However, Gai’s passion gushed all across his expression.

Without stopping his attempt to breach through the jutsu and crush Yamato, Maito Gai grinned broadly upon seeing Kakashi and, truly joyful, declared only one word:

**“Rival!”**

Iruka glanced back at Kakashi and tried not to be dumbfounded.

Although it was subtle, the man was distinctly smiling under his mask, even while still looking exhausted.

Seemingly unaffected by the violence, the missing nin asked, “What’s this about?” 

Even though he felt as lost as a pre-genin who’d wandered into battle, Iruka tried to be observant of what was going on around him. Certainly, Yamato was still desperately trying to keep Maito Gai from rupturing his wooden-jutsu defense even as the conversation unfolded. His mask was concealing his expression, but it was apparent he was holding himself firmly in place. Although Gai was continuously pushing his fist down through the lattice-shield, he seemed focused on Kakashi standing up on the walkway. 

He reminded Iruka of an excited hound finally seeing its owner return home.

“I heard Iruka-sensei was drunk by the Hokage Tower, and Tenzo took him home, but I knew better!” Gai proudly and excessively announced, his own green chakra burning bright about him. “Iruka-sensei would never be publicly drunk! Tenzo must have taken him – and I will not let another good man be hijacked by ANBU!”

Those last words became noticeably darker and more furious as Gai spoke them aloud. 

Even Gai’s chakra – a sure sign he’d opened Five of the Eight Gates – flared in the end, making Yamato wince away from him while still trying to keep his footing and his balance as well. 

It was… more than a bit confusing to hear a new name being thrown about.

_Tenzo?_

Iruka found his gaze drifting over to Yamato… Naruto’s sensei… Kakashi’s kouhai.

_… is… his name… actually… Tenzo?_

“He was shouting your name, senpai,” the man in question declared, sounding truly sour.

Pressed up against Iruka, Kakashi shifted incrementally, actually leaning further into him. It was a strange movement and caught Iruka off-guard, but their bodies being close together was pleasantly familiar. The feeling reminded him of the night that they’d laid together in bed, when Kakashi had silently and tenderly used him for support, for strength. Without understanding why, Iruka found himself blushing; he was unsure where to look in the eminently odd situation occurring before him.

Iruka also had no idea what to say, so…

So… he said nothing.

After a long and weird moment of silence, Kakashi answered both men at once by saying: 

“It’s good you care.”

Yamato’s shoulders slumped; apparently, he’d been worried he’d done wrong when he took Iruka away. Even though the motion should have cost him with Gai, the blazing-green jōnin instead pulled away – and – 

_Oh._

_Oh, wow._

Maito Gai was outright weeping, clutching his fist in front of him.

“Rival,” he ground out, squeezing his eyes tight, tears streaming. “You are so cool, it is **agony**.”

Close beside Iruka’s scarred cheek, Kakashi brushed off the compliment, impossibly and mysteriously eye-smiling, “Maa, I’m only trying to keep up with you, Gai.”

But, before either Yamato or Gai could respond to him, the missing nin continued on, mercilessly level-toned and sounding terribly nonchalant, “If anyone hurts Iruka, I’ll kill them.” 

He paused, as if allowing his words to be absorbed by all those present, before he concluded in the same airy tone, “But thank you both for protecting him in my absence.”

Instantly in response, Yamato returned his wood jutsu into his body and stood at attention, fully facing Kakashi. The position was so ridiculously obvious in its meaning, Iruka nearly couldn’t believe it. But it was incontestable, seeing the ANBU so obediently focused on Kakashi, soundlessly submitting to both the threat and declaration of gratitude. 

It was what shinobi did when listening to leaders.

It was how lower-ranked nin responded to their superiors.

_… Kakashi isn’t fighting ANBU._

_Kakashi…_

_**… is ANBU.**_

Without privy to Iruka’s internal struggle, Maito Gai responded in his own spectacular way. He wiped at his face, pawing away his tears, before he rose his fist to the sky and announced in a stirring but startling exclamation, “I will always protect your precious person, Kakashi! You have done so much for Konoha: I will never let anyone hurt Iruka-sensei, I promise to protect him now and forever!”

Yamato glanced Gai’s way, appearing somewhat surprised, but he must have agreed with the sentiment, because unexpectedly he nodded in agreement - towards Kakashi.

_Are they promising to protect…_

_… me?_

Unpredictably, stunningly, Maito Gai’s actual words hit Iruka about three seconds later.

_I’m Kakashi’s precious person?_

He must have stiffened at the realization, because suddenly Kakashi made a soft little noise deep within his cloth-covered throat. The two of them were far too intertwined for Iruka’s action not to have some sort of consequence, but he felt his face flame with shame as it occurred to him that he’d actually hurt Kakashi by jostling him.

His subsequent guilt was so awful that he shot the other man a honest look of horror.

But Kakashi only returned Iruka's gaze with one black eye, absolutely steady and serene.

Whatever happened between them, in his and Kakashi’s dreamily and emotionally-charged shared stare with their faces so close together - it was enough that it prompted both Gai and Yamato to start moving.

In an amazingly inconspicuous manner, Maito Gai closed his Five Gates and professed in farewell, “I am happy you are back, Rival. We must spar sometime - when you get better!”

At the exact same time, Yamato headed towards the spider-drenched ANBU and picked her up, dropping her prone body and her bothered summons across his back. He walked by Kakashi and Iruka as easily as a man passing by strangers at the market. Then, within only a few moments, he was right back outside, standing beside Gai, only now he had an ANBU flung over each shoulder.

“I’ll take the next shift,” Yamato said truly confusingly, but then again, the whole thing was a chaotic mess, and Iruka just stared at the strange sight ahead of him, at Maito Gai and three ANBU. They had all just been fighting - over what to do with Iruka? how he should be handled? – so forcefully that Gai had knocked out cold two of the village’s most elite shinobi and had attempted to do so with a third. 

Yet, now, seemingly without too much ill blood, or at least with their mutual animosity heartily repressed because of Kakashi’s coolly-stated warning –

Yamato and Gai walked away from –

_Wait, where are we…?_

Iruka looked over his left shoulder back at the building behind them. With the briefest survey, he recognized they were standing on the well-crafted walkway of an old, traditional family compound.

The whole structure was neglected, but not so much so that it couldn’t be used by visitors.

While dense forest clung to the walls of the compound, the setting seemed strangely familiar… and it took Iruka only a few contemplative seconds to piece together that this was Konoha architecture, and that they were within Konoha, probably on the furthest edge of the village.

“Can we go inside?”

Iruka felt like he could spontaneously combust, he was so embarrassed with himself.

He’d somehow forgotten he was holding Kakashi up – and that the man was relying on him!

He returned them both to the futon a bit too quickly, but Kakashi admirably didn’t complain. Instead, the unusual shinobi pulled Iruka down with him, all without saying a word. There was no hesitation for Iruka in laying down beside him; he found sincere stability in being intimate and close to the other man after what had to be the most bewildering scene of life thus far. 

Without a doubt, he had no idea what was going on, and he could see Gai’s green fist breaking into Yamato’s wood jutsu, and black spiders roiling over the ANBU’s porcelain mask, and the broken-looking limbs of the other ANBU smashed in a heap against the wall, and – and – and –

Laying on the futon together, Kakashi tugged Iruka closer, then lowered his head and pushed his masked nose into Iruka’s chest.

His hand floated upwards between them… and gently directed Iruka to caress his hair.

Iruka’s heart thumped: he was swept away by the man in his arms.

He pondered the phrase _precious person_ as he soothed Kakashi into a saccharine sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We may never meet, but please know I sincerely appreciate you.
> 
> You make my days better and my nights bright.
> 
> I write for you.
> 
> I really do.
> 
> I sincerely hope you enjoy this chapter.
> 
> ______

The world was dark and dreamy. 

A missing nin was waiting for him on the futon. 

A missing nin stood in the doorway.

Iruka was leaning against the living room wall; he’d used the bathroom just a moment earlier. His mind was still puzzling over the pair of rosemary-sage soap bars by the sink and bathtub. Only one had been used – and only ever so slightly. Yet that bar was tucked inside the tub, resting on the tile beside stains of dirt and blood. It had been used recently: it was why Kakashi smelled as he did right now, even while chakra exhausted and waiting for Iruka’s embrace.

But then - there – 

There was Kakashi Hatake, his silhouette black in the moonlight. Behind him was the elaborate shadowed greenery leading to the compound’s front gate. The man’s body looked outrageously lean. His silver hair was attractively disheveled, like a rogue rousing only to bother the ladies. The rainbow patchwork clothing hung on his frame, as it always had, making him appear old and tragic and wild. The red-wrapped katana from their first kiss in the woods – it was firmly at his side, within reach.

… and Kakashi Hatake was _also_ sleeping on the floor, his long figure loose and lazy laid out across the futon. His arm was thrown over where Iruka had just been laying, as if he was trying to find his deserted lover. The man’s sleepwear, so frayed and ancient, made him look young and impoverished. He had no visible weaponry, nor did it seem like he was anywhere near battlefield readiness.

Iruka slowly looked back at the multicolored Kakashi silhouetted in the doorway.

Backlit by the moon, _that_ Kakashi stooped down and placed a small package at the entranceway.

As he lifted himself back up, his bright solitary eye caught Iruka’s disturbed gaze…

Then, after smiling mischievously at Iruka…

Kakashi walked away into the darkness.

He merely stepped backwards and headed to the right, to where earlier in the day the ANBU woman had been thrown unconscious, and her spiders had so flooded the wooden walkway. 

It was worse than seeing a ghost, because _a second Kakashi_ still lay only a few feet away. 

It was appalling – and wrong – and -

and – 

Iruka peeled open the eyelid covering Kakashi’s Sharingan to see if it was real.

The man crunched his fingers down on Iruka’s shoulders so painfully, so horribly, that Iruka instantly scratched across Kakashi’s face with sharp, fearful intensity. His nails left behind three bloody red lines in Kakashi’s white skin next to the stolen dōjutsu. The pain blooming in Iruka’s muscles and bones ran in perfect horrific parallel to the deep scrape he had made in Kakashi’s flesh.

He shuddered at the gruesome agony of it.

Beneath him, Kakashi stared up at Iruka with a wide black eye and wildly spinning Sharingan.

They were full of queasy stress – and dashed dreams.

Then… Kakashi’s chest heaved, and he winced in upset. But still the missing nin stayed quiet, visibly unsure of what Iruka had intended when he sought out the already-once-pilfered jutsu.

Strangely enough, Iruka succeeded in finding his voice in the dreadful dead of night. However, he sounded so absolutely broken as he finally demanded, desperately unable to control himself, like he was pleading or possibly even begging – 

“Please tell me what’s happening here.”

Although for a moment it seemed Kakashi might not grasp the situation, the misunderstanding didn’t last long, because then he tilted back his head and looked directly at the package by the door. 

In the changed lighting from the moon, the fresh blood from the recent injury Iruka gave him – _it shone._

Kakashi’s extraordinary eyes returned to Iruka, and he looked as white and still as snow. His expression had smoothed over like winter crushing the life out of the woods. His hands – still awfully clenched onto Iruka, like he was afraid of him or perhaps afraid Iruka would disappear – soon loosened with deliberate but stealthy change. He very carefully closed off the Sharingan.

“Did you see me over there?” the man asked, voice delicate, face wet with blood.

Iruka felt incredibly stupid - and scared - and insane - but – but –

“Yes,” he whispered, shakily brushing downward over the nin’s clothed biceps. “Yes, I did.”

In a gentle but truly stormy declaration, Kakashi Hatake confessed while staring up toward Iruka, “You’ve already met him.” His dark eye became markedly peeved as he clarified further, “Yuuto Kuzurasa. He’s an ANBU medical-nin. He’s the one Gai knocked out earlier in the evening.”

Iruka felt sick, so sick, so very sick, as he tried to understand, so he stumbled through speaking.

“But he looked like you, just like you!” A terrifying thought sliced through Iruka, and he said it aloud immediately, burnt and shocked. “Have I – and _him_? Was it - always me and – you?”

Kakashi’s entire countenance shifted: he looked abruptly as deadly as the electrical jutsu that sporadically encased his hand.

The violence wasn’t meant for Iruka: that was made obvious the very next moment.

After sitting up, Kakashi seemed just nearly about to kiss Iruka - right before he professed, his tone bloody and vicious, “I have never spoken to them about you, and they have never known you as I have.”

The mysterious shinobi must have known that he was frightening Iruka with his ferocity, because he carefully pulled away and caressed the bruises he had most certainly given Iruka across his shoulders. 

His pained expression was practically lethal in its sincerity, in its truth. 

Iruka could do nothing but believe him.

But Iruka was destabilized, he was unstable, he was without stability… He…

He fell into Kakashi, and the man held him upright by entangling them together on the futon. 

With his lips soft by Iruka’s ear, the shinobi spoke with featherlight stillness and promise, “I swear to you: I am Kakashi Hatake, and I serve Konoha. I always have, and I always will.”

Thrilled trembling heat poured through Iruka.

_This is what I’ve wanted to hear… to know…_

Horribly, though, Kakashi sounded despondent, he sounded sorry. His tone betrayed him, even with his steady encompassing embrace of Iruka. Without the words, Iruka might have thought the other man to be confident and carefree based on his perfect posture, even as Iruka suffered in confusion. 

But... Kakashi seemed tired, hurt, and even ashamed as he tried to explain his life to Iruka. 

“I’ve been made into a monster to defend the village, but I can’t do it alone. Those ANBU from before are my partners: Tenzo, Yuuto, and Haruko Aburame.” After pausing a weighty moment, Kakashi’s voice became rougher as he admitted aloud, “Haruko started a few years ago; her predecessor died. The same happened with Yuuto. He’s the third medical-nin on our team.”

_The Kakashi in the doorway… was the ANBU… the medical-nin… Yuuto._

Iruka could picture the serene ANBU woman with her black spiders dancing across porcelain: she had seen Kakashi and him kiss in the Academy classroom, she had called them lustful, she had kept it a secret even from her fellows until it was most needed to be known. She was ANBU, Yamato-sensei was ANBU, that second Kakashi was ANBU, they were all ANBU, this was an ANBU mission, these were ANBU, they were –

Kakashi’s lips touched Iruka’s neck: it felt like distant lightning striking the horizon.

They pulled apart and looked at each other.

“You kill Konoha shinobi,” Iruka impulsively alleged.

Kakashi’s dark eye was flat and fatal as he replied, “I kill those come after Konoha - but there are those who die by mistake.” His singular gaze considered Iruka’s weak wavering expression, and he added, dark and sorrowed, “I didn’t mean for your teammates to die. I was chasing you home. There were enemy nin following you. But Akari Sokuochi fell into Tenzo’s trap, and… as you saw… she died instantly.” 

Kakashi became spectral as he watched Iruka’s disturbed scarred features. He seemed to be floating elsewhere, back to that scene of suffering and death. “Keita Ayahira…” he began, but then the Sharingan slowly rose into existence. The same moment, the shinobi looked away, unknowingly considering the spot where Iruka had once been encased in Tenzo’s wooden coffin.

_Keita Ayahira… he was the one… who Kakashi…_

The vision was blurry with time and blackened misremembrance. 

But it was real. 

It felt real. 

Keita dead in the smoke, his chest opened by electricity. 

Kakashi’s electricity. 

The man’s personal signature jutsu.

“Keita Ayahira impaled himself on my hand,” Kakashi suddenly said, his voice now as hard as the Monument Rock and all the chiseled Hokage upon it. He spoke with pale ugly death clogging his words, making him skeletal and desolate. “He was scared, and he didn’t look where he was going.” 

_He sounds… he sounds… _

Iruka thought _he_ should be the one crying… the one of their pair weeping as the dawn came.

But it was Kakashi’s eyes – both of them – that were brimming with tears as he gazed away from Iruka and then further off into the distant pastel sunrise.

Iruka could see his old teammate, Keita Ayahira: his careless errors, how he slipped out of the tree, how he spun recklessly when filled with terror.

The smoke that Kakashi had created had been a screen. The electric jutsu was a violent warning to _move, get moving, get out of here._

It had instead killed a nin.

“… you didn’t mean to…” Iruka murmured, bleakly believing Kakashi and his tears and his misery. 

Just then –

The man tried to get away from him. 

Kakashi clearly couldn’t take it, whatever this was, whatever was happening between them.

But Iruka caught his face in hand, spread the shinobi’s blood on his palm. It was quickly joined by endless tears, and Kakashi soon collapsed into Iruka, reversing their roles from a minute before. These weren’t the same tears from weeks earlier when Kakashi was silent and barely moving. This was awful and cathartic and purgative; this was a lifetime of wrongdoing and things gone wrong. 

It was despair.

Utter despair.

It was impossible to hold Kakashi: the man transferred all his weight and burdens onto Iruka.

They were flat on the futon within moments, with Kakashi cold, pale, and shivering against the curve of Iruka’s neck, the nin’s blood and tears forever altering Iruka’s shinobi blue attire. 

The sunrise was magnificent… 

It seemed insufferable with Kakashi weeping against him.

There was a faint memory of a village rumor… that Kakashi had done something like this before… Not crying with another person – but the accidental death of someone. Someone important. His –

_His teammate._

_Not the Uchiha._

_The girl… Rin._

Even with Kakashi’s heavy immovable weight on him, Iruka still had the strength to twitch.

He’d heard that name before – falling from Kakashi’s lips – !

Kakashi had uttered her name as he suffered in Iruka’s bathtub, blood-stained and scarred and newly wounded – she was his original medical-nin – she had died by –

She had died by Kakashi’s hand.

Accidentally.

So many accidents.

So much horror.

So much death.

No wonder they made him into a monster. 

A monster to frighten the other Hidden Villages, to terrify Konoha’s enemies, to kill to kill to kill.

“Oh… oh, Kakashi,” Iruka whispered woefully into the man’s silver hair, stroking his back.

The nin above him answered only by holding onto him tighter.


	13. Chapter 13

It was such a strange situation – Iruka had no idea how it would progress.

One second, he was stroking Kakashi’s back, looking blankly outside at blue skies.

The next…

Well, the next – 

Kakashi pulled himself up somewhat, lifting his fingers to his temple, to where blood trickled from the scratch-marks Iruka had given him. He didn’t wince. Instead, his expression flattened out as he assessed the damage. While his gaze was elsewhere, clearly no longer on Iruka, the concern was apparent: Kakashi didn’t have enough chakra to spare to heal himself. 

It seemed obvious to Iruka that he should heal Kakashi.

He did so without moving very much – and without saying anything to the other nin. The pretty springtime green coalesced between Iruka’s calloused fingers and spread across Kakashi’s pale skin. The wounds were shallow; rather than currently causing pain, it was more astonishing that the injury had happened at all. Soon the three raw red marks disappeared, as if Iruka’s nails had never carved into the man in the first place. 

Iruka was barely thinking as he leaned forward, upward, and touched Kakashi’s drying blood with his fingertips. No healing jutsu could sweep away blood. It was up to Iruka to remove the results of his paranoia and confusion: he was deliberate and careful wiping away the rest with his shirt sleeve. 

_… Kakashi is on a nine-year ANBU mission._

History lessons about the Hidden Villages flipped through Iruka’s head as if they were pages in a textbook. There were stories of legends – of Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist – of powerful jinchūriki, vessels of the Tailed Beasts – of clans of roaming criminal shinobi. There were traitorous missing nin heralding from every village. There were mysterious samurai from the Land of Iron. 

Konoha had its share of missing nin… 

It also had a jinchūriki.

Naruto Uzumaki.

_My Naruto._

But Naruto was young, very young. He wasn’t scary… He grinned big. He ate ramen too fast. He was desperate for friendship, and Iruka had once gotten a nosebleed from his perverted harem jutsu. Naruto was not ready for war: he wasn’t ready to defend Konoha, no, not yet. He had only just had his first C-rank mission! … even if it had become a higher ranked mission, teeming full of missing nin, but… but still…

He refocused on Kakashi, who had backed away and was watching him intently.

The wounds were gone. Iruka’s chakra swirled through Kakashi’s pathways.

The shinobi’s Sharingan disappeared again. 

His black eye seared Iruka…

His low voice wrecked Iruka.

“Now you’re inside me,” Kakashi said softly, his sultry words predatory. 

Iruka felt like he was melting through the wood floor… 

His blush rebelled against him. 

And he just _shuddered_ when Kakashi looked up at him through ethereal gray eyelashes and admitted aloud, absolutely unashamed, “I want to be inside you, too.” 

No fantasy ever imagined could match _the look_ Kakashi was giving him. As almost always, the man seemed cool and composed, even as he drew his gaze down Iruka’s body. It was as if he could see through rumpled clothes into Iruka’s very core sexuality. 

Faced with such unabashed lecherous intention, Iruka tried to remember to breathe, but he felt too flustered, leaving him boyish and near stammering. There was so little skill left in him to respond. He barely summoned the strength to touch Kakashi’s bent leg in silent affirmation.

He was wrong yet again as he guessed what the other shinobi would do next.

Instead of going for Iruka’s throat or between his thighs, Kakashi stood up off the futon, finding his balance immediately. He floated over towards the open door and picked up the package left behind by Yuuto, the ANBU medical-nin, the Kakashi-lookalike. 

Long fingers plucked at the twine; down on the floor dropped the paper wrapping. 

The laugh the man gave was so surprising, Iruka couldn’t help but clamor to his feet. 

“What is it?” he found himself asking, overcome by curiosity. He was desperately trying not to be embarrassed how much he had wanted - and still wanted! - them to fall into kissing and do much more passionate things - thoughtless, desperate, delightful passionate things! 

He was at Kakashi’s side a moment later, also vaguely realizing how very strange it was to be near a man thought of as **the** missing nin in such a truly casual way.

But… 

But the stranger thing was in Kakashi’s hands.

It was a handmade bento.

Atop the fluffy white rice, carefully curated seaweed spelled out **L O V E**. Nearby, three radishes, pale in the center, pink-magenta on the edges, had been molded into hearts. They sat beside cubes of baked tofu that had been shaped altogether into a panting, happy-eyed ninken dog.

A small piece of white paper stood up on the edge.

In wide looping scrawl, Yuuto explained his present with preening floridity.

_Have him feed this to you! It would make a cute memory!_

… the word ‘cute’ was underlined three times.

Then Iruka noticed underneath in much smaller and tighter print:

_I used the soap you were saving to clean you. Please do not hurt me._

Iruka laughed a little, surprised to read something so silly –

Kakashi flung him down onto the floor. 

The air went out of him; his martial instinct kicked in. Without thinking, Iruka sought out a vital pressure point, trying to get the other man off of him, but Kakashi slammed both his arms aside. Iruka’s expression blew up in panic, violently remembering how little he knew about the situation. 

He could die here! – wherever the fuck this was! - it would be blamed on Kakashi the monstrous missing nin - or be a murder hidden and shelved away - or maybe made to look like an accident – !

Kakashi was dark intensity staring down at him.

The Sharingan stayed away, but that black Hatake eye –

_He sees right through me._

“I’m constantly thinking about you,” Kakashi said, stark but unsteady. “I thought it was genjutsu.”

“I didn’t – I wouldn’t –” Iruka haltingly tried to reply, staggered by the man's confession.

The steely-eyed shinobi didn’t stress about his irregular response. Instead, Kakashi flexed his hands over Iruka’s wrists and glanced up to study the site of their rough contact. He looked rather displeased, but he didn’t sound so terrible as he remarked distractedly, “I’ve read a lot about romance. We haven’t done anything like the books… You’ve barely said my name.”

The old memory of the bloodied hopeful turn of Kakashi’s face, down flat on the bathroom floor, hearing Iruka cry his name in fear and shock, shot to the forefront of Iruka’s thoughts.

_Oh… he wanted me to say…_

“Kakashi,” Iruka murmured, gazing upward at the man’s only open eye. But he refused to be passive. He wouldn’t have Kakashi thinking that this didn’t include romance, whatever this mysterious thing between them was. Instead, he pulled down on Kakashi’s shirt, inviting him to come closer, which deliciously the other man submitted to doing without question or pause.

Their lips nearly touched. Kakashi’s revealed face went pink with a fine blush. 

It made Iruka crazy.

He tugged harder on Kakashi, and they kissed roughly, bruisingly, once again, finally.

There were the most distant songs of birds as they made out wildly in the open door of the compound. There was the feeling of sunlight warming up their bodies, along with desire and increasingly frenzied devotion to each other. There was the slight pleasant breeze cooling things down, the sweat and the panting and the writhing against each other.

But it was Kakashi’s hands that intervened most of all in Iruka’s worldview. The same hands that had once stopped Iruka from slamming through jutsu formations to create barrier ninjutsu out of fear – those very hands now slid down Iruka’s pants and Kakashi’s as well. Even as a minute worry about unprepared sex crossed Iruka’s mind, Kakashi answered easily and silently, bringing up his hips against Iruka’s and caused their arousals to meet, bare and warm, for the first time.

The sensation was utter sin, and Iruka immediately wanted more, more, more.

Certainly he knew he should have some decorum, but it was gone all in an instant when he saw Kakashi’s expression. The man’s black eye fluttered, his pale pink lips parted, his scar relaxed as his face fled entirely to astonished pleasure. 

... the acute memory of Yuuto asking aloud to the other ANBU if Kakashi had any experience with relationships suddenly troubled Iruka.

Surely, surely… Kakashi was not a…

Iruka led the adventure. He got his footing on the wooden walkway; he pushed his hips upward into Kakashi, bringing their cocks together, uniting their pubic hair both silver and dark, over and over again. He was breathing hard as he stared up wonderingly at Kakashi’s flickering, heated expression. He wondered, oh so crazily, what Kakashi was seeing as the shinobi watched him, watched him press their bodies together, watched him imitate fucking.

The answer was after a moment, but damn, it was an answer. With far too much precision and perfection, Kakashi stole his arm between them and grabbed both of their cocks into one strong, careful hand. He clearly relished Iruka’s insistence, but he took over with ease, rutting down more into Iruka and holding them tighter, tighter, tighter, together in a blissed-out state of raging lust.

Iruka realized he was making sounds – frantic, raw sounds – sounds that would have embarrassed him under any other circumstance – but – _fuck, fuck, fuck_ – Kakashi was glorious heat and deadly obsession staring down at him, savoring watching Iruka gasp and shake in their overwhelming shared pleasure. 

There was nothing else for Iruka to do but become frighteningly freed by the sensation of their precum-slick cocks being so forcefully stroked together, the feel of the wooden panels scratching and bumping his exposed back, the way the yellow-golden sun silhouetted Kakashi’s wild silver hair and detailed the man’s scars and his beauty mark and the absolutely wondrous expression of adoration he was giving Iruka.

Iruka threw back his head as it all became perfect and too much, and he huffed out Kakashi’s name in one hot, frantic, obsessed breath, and oh if Kakashi didn’t answer with Iruka’s name far above him before dropping down and kissing Iruka through their harmonized orgasm. They were still kissing seconds, even minutes later, well after pleasure had rocked them and made the world fuzzy and comfy and lovely and right. There seemed to be no end to this kiss, and Iruka didn’t mind that, not at all, not with this person, with all his enigma and confusion and suffering. 

He had questions – dozens, hundreds, thousands – but damn if he just didn’t want to kiss the man for the rest of the day and then the rest of time...


	14. Chapter 14

“It’s too early for them!”

Iruka nearly jumped to his feet, but his face burned, so he restrained himself. In front of him, both Yamato (Tenzo?) and Kakashi remained perfectly calm. Their unflappable faces in the face of his rage made Iruka want to wallop them each into next week. He found himself shaking even as he sat in the old noble Hatake family compound. They were – the three of them - in the living room where he’d been imprisoned, where he’d seen with his own eyes the village’s top-secret ANBU mission.

Sure… he didn’t fully understand it. Truth to be told, he’d hadn’t dared to ask about it. Clearly, Iruka wasn’t supposed to know that Kakashi wasn’t missing nin, or rather, that he was playing one. He didn’t bother Naruto about the boy’s roiling turmoil with the Nine-Tailed Fox. He wouldn’t be reckless or bold or wrong enough to ask Kakashi – or even Yamato-Tenzo - _hey, tell me the details of your mission, like when does it end, will it ever end, will you come home, can you please live with me instead of the woods and the ghostly remains of your ancestral family estate?_

But that wasn’t today’s concern. It was how both jōnin had deliberately sat him down, saying they needed to have an important conversation with him. Of course, Iruka had thought it was something to do with Kakashi’s now more-frequent disappearances, how Yuuto had started leaving him creative bento for lunch, how the Aburame woman had gifted Iruka a guardian spider summon by posting it in the corner of his apartment, its sudden late-night discovery scaring him almost to death.

No, none of that came up. Instead it was about Naruto… Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.

“They’re not ready for the chūnin exams,” Iruka ground out, barely able to contain himself. He kept his eyes trained on Yamato, the sensei of the three genin, but he could feel his anger overflowing, swamping Kakashi sitting right beside the other elite shinobi. He continued: “They’re all talented, but they aren’t ready yet. They need more experience before they participate in the exams.”

_Shouldn’t he intervene? Isn’t his mission about keeping Naruto safe for the village?_

But Kakashi had returned to being an unreadable, nonchalant masked stranger in the woods. He seemed like he was thinking about the constellations forming unique shapes – or about what he would like for dinner – not the outraged Academy teacher valiantly defending his students before him. 

Yamato was relaxed as well, but he winced a little as he noticed Iruka turn to stare at Kakashi. 

“Senpai, you should tell him,” Yamato said under his breath, looking uncomfortable.

Iruka felt his eyes narrow and his shoulders tense. “Tell me what.” He enunciated each word.

Turning his dry gaze to Iruka, Kakashi acted like he’d never cried against Iruka’s chest, never caressed Iruka’s face, never held them together and brought them to shuddering shared pleasure. Instead he slowly and placidly said, “I’ve been training Sasuke in the woods on how to use the Sharingan. Tenzo has been working with Naruto on the tailed beast. I became a chūnin six years earlier than Naruto. He –”

Breaking all etiquette ever ingrained him, Iruka interrupted his lover, this so-called missing nin. 

As he did so, this time, he did stand up, livid beyond reason. 

He suddenly understood Maito Gai’s intensity, why Gai bloodied his genin as if they weren’t kids, why Gai always pushed them so hard. He worried about this, exactly this: older higher-ranked shinobi making them do worse things when he wasn’t around, when they graduated, if he happened to die. His students could be used by the village to become something awful… to do awful things. 

And so Iruka snapped down at the ANBU, “He’s different from you,” as he glowered at the two men, both of them sitting, having decided to watch him in silence.

He had no embarrassment about his behavior; instead, he had to fight off the furious impulse to slap both shinobi. Didn’t they regret some of their mission to Konoha? It had seemed like Kakashi did! He had cried several times now, pitiful and depressed, hurt that this was his life, that he was alone. Could he really want that for Naruto, who was just a boy, a genin who’d barely had a dozen missions?

Much more fearful, but also running hot with rage, Iruka couldn’t help but ask Kakashi, only Kakashi…

“Are you trying to ruin him?”

In response, Kakashi rose to his feet like a sleepy cat, stretching out lazy bones. His scratched-out hitai-ate was a mysterious, mystifying reminder of his strange position in the world. Yet his decade-old shinobi blue attire seemed sewn from something else, a different sort of loyalty, deep and dark. 

His voice was nearly toneless and his eyes went empty as he replied to Iruka’s declaration.

“I was the one who recommended they take the chūnin exams. While it is under Tenzo’s name publicly, I alone spoke to the Hokage. Putting them into dangerous situations will be interesting; so would ruining them.”

The color drained from Iruka’s face. His scar felt cold, frost seeping linear across his cheeks. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard… There was a profound worry of genjutsu, something, anything to explain Kakashi’s cold cruelty…

“What did you say?” he wondered, twin lines of hurt and confusion sapping his strength.

Kakashi didn’t blink his black eye; his expression remained blank. “I understand what you’re saying,” he spoke evenly while looking straight at Iruka. “It’s only natural you’d be upset - but they aren’t your students anymore.” By his side, Yamato stood suddenly, his body language showing alarm, appearing as if he was intending on stopping his much-loved senpai and team captain. But he was too late, much too late, because Kakashi concluded hard. “You shouldn’t interfere.”

“Yamato, please leave us alone,” Iruka heard himself say, his rage taking over. He could see the other ANBU glance between him and Kakashi, and he was truly, fully pissed that the man only left because Kakashi minutely nodded at him, but he was definitely relieved to be alone, because –

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” he hissed, stepping forward towards Kakashi.

But the faux-missing-nin seemed unconcerned with the new proximity and the angry question. He only shrugged and admitted easily, “A lot of things.” His single-eyed gaze never strayed from Iruka’s. “But this isn’t one of them. Asuma and Kurenai recommended their genin, too. It’s nine rookies this year; it’s not only Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. They’re all growing in their skills.”

Iruka ignored how broken and paternal he sounded as he asked while searching Kakashi’s expertly blank expression, “I thought you were protecting Naruto.”

“I see,” Kakashi murmured, his masked-muffled voice more reflective. He didn’t move, nor did he change his countenance, but he did seem markedly more careful in his next response. “There are those who move against Konoha from within as well as beyond. My mission objective is to limit their growth. It is to stop the village from being destroyed. I was chosen to defend our village because I was the most convenient monster available. Everyone knew my father, they knew what happened to my genin team, they know I have the Sharingan. I was chosen to strike fear into our enemies and keep our people on their toes.” 

Kakashi paused, not so much to swallow his own words, but to let Iruka absorb them into himself.

It was impossible. Iruka felt his body failing him, his brain going mushy.

_… we have traitors inside the village? they’re… still alive… walking the streets?_

He wanted to go home now, find Naruto, and wrap him up a warm embrace.

But Kakashi resumed talking, sounding softer, although he remained just as steady as before. “Sasuke is a quick learner, and Naruto has passion. Sakura needs a mentor, but she’ll find her place. They are ready to try for chūnin. I know you want to keep them safe, but that is not the life of a shinobi.” 

His head tilted slightly, causing his silver hair to cascade left, the side of his Sharingan. “I’ve endangered everything by falling in love with you.” Kakashi’s dark eye shone as he stated, matter-of-factly, “I’ve killed people who were looking for you. I may be the reason you die. Still, I can’t stay away from you. I think about you all the time, and I want to be with you until the day I die.” 

Kakashi stopped a second, then asked, “Should we stay apart, or should we fight for this?”

Iruka felt staggered; he stared hopelessly at the other man. 

Or… was it hopefully?

Eerily, this might be the most Kakashi Hatake had ever spoken to him… and it was during a spat.

Embarrassment fluttered about him, but Iruka willed himself through it. He understood Kakashi’s point – that shinobi did dangerous things, and what they were doing here together was dangerous, to themselves and others and perhaps the whole village – but Iruka knew he still wouldn’t end things between them. He couldn’t stop his beating heart; he couldn’t redirect his neurology not to love.

He dropped his gaze to the wooden flooring. Long after they’d kissed that warm sunny day, and Kakashi had left to patrol the woods for unknown evil, Iruka had realized that this old wooden structure was the Hatake family compound, standing abandoned and alone. The spot that they had been together in that wondrous wild way… that was not all so distant from where Kakashi’s father had taken his own life after that sorrowful infamous mission. 

This shinobi – Kakashi Hatake - he lived amongst death.

… maybe Iruka could change that… even if just a little.

They met gazes again. Now he could see Kakashi was apprehensive. The man was static all over. His flat expression, mostly hidden behind the scratched hitai-ate and his mask, was deliberately distant. 

_Oh… he’s scared I’ll leave him._

Iruka relaxed his shoulders, took a deep breath, and admitted aloud, embarrassed to his core:

“I’m protective of Naruto because he’s all I have left. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

He saw Kakashi’s exposed silver brow lift… oh so very slightly. It was… oddly encouraging.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, either, but I know that’s stupid,” Iruka forced himself to say. He didn’t want to confess that he’d imagined he and Kakashi as old happy civilians sipping tea and watching grandkids while fondly tending to their shop. He didn’t want to explain his nightmares had shifted over from Naruto needing Iruka on a mission – now to Kakashi dying bloodily, messily, and Iruka never being told, never knowing, just having the absence of the man burn obvious and tragic.

“I’d rather test Naruto and the others to see if they’re really ready, but…” Iruka winced, and his hands crushed into fists, shaking tight at his sides. “But if you think they’re ready, if their senseis think that, if Hokage-sama thinks it too, then – then they should take the chūnin exams.”

He looked curiously, but also forcefully, at Kakashi as he asked the obvious follow-up question:

“Will you be there? Other Hidden Villages are coming… You’ll make sure everything goes well?”

When Kakashi did not respond, at all, whatsoever, Iruka became increasingly flummoxed at what was happening, and then he slowly confronted the awkward realization that _he had actually not answered Kakashi’s earlier crazily significant question._

** _“Should we stay apart, or should we fight for this?”_ **

He visibly unsettled Kakashi as Iruka closed the gap between them; the shinobi stiffened. But it wasn’t his intention to unnerve the poor nin, something Iruka made very clear as he reached up and slid down Kakashi’s mask, feeling far too bold and reckless as he made his final decision on the matter. The other man observed him with less and less distance, both physical and emotional. He seemed unsure what Iruka meant to do nor what he was doing, but Kakashi was interested, he was wanting, he was needful.

A bit too greedily, Iruka considered Kakashi’s face, enjoying the many scars, the black beauty mark. He only just managed to confess, his heart aflutter, a blush overtaking his own scarred features, “I’ll never leave you.” 

His distracted mind reminded him that earlier Kakashi had said so easily, so swiftly _ I’ve endangered everything by falling in love with you_, which was the first mention of – 

“I love you. I’ll fight for you. I’ll die for you.”

It was downright bizarre – because, somehow, with unparalleled swiftness, Kakashi had pushed up his hitai-ate and opened the Sharingan – and then he’d copied the words at almost the exact very time that Iruka was speaking them – and so they ended up in the totally bewildering and unexpected situation where both made the very same promise to one another at the very same time.

Iruka turned bright red in shock and amazement.

Maskless, without his headband, he could see Kakashi’s cheeks flush a full pretty pink 

They were slow to kiss, and their kiss was slow… but it was lovely, because they were in love.


	15. Chapter 15

Something was wrong within Konoha.

There was smoke above the chūnin exams arena, and there were screams in the streets. It meant violence well beyond Naruto’s fight with Neji Hyūga, Gai’s pariah prodigy. Although his heart was far off in the dirt with his son, Iruka knew his place: he had to protect the Academy pre-genin. 

They were all looking at him, horrified and scared. He ushered them back inside the building when he realized that this wasn’t just the Sand Village turning traitorous… 

This was something else entirely.

Something worse.

He went through wards; he placed up barrier ninjutsu. Sweat soaked his shinobi blues. His flak jacket felt more like a straightjacket stifling his freedom. Sounds permeated the village, strange ones, ones that made him wince on the outside and scream on the inside. He had students who were already chūnin and jōnin out there fighting. Plus his genin graduates… his poor passionate Naruto… 

Suddenly struck by a thought, Iruka stiffened as he stood ahead the collective of the tiny to-be nin. 

_Kakashi._

They’d last met before the trials started. Those last few seconds together – Iruka burned abruptly remembering them. He’d been anxious and needy, craving reassurance about Naruto. His behavior had amused Kakashi, who remained preoccupied with cleaning his ANBU porcelain mask. The habit was usually an interesting one, but now it bothered Iruka’s last nerves, and he grabbed Kakashi’s gloved hands, feeling absolutely desperate. The action had proved surprisingly startling to the other man, who must have realized in that moment that Iruka really truly needed his intervention.

Not all that shockingly, Kakashi’s answer wasn’t verbal. 

Instead, he kissed Iruka deeply – and then gave him a sudden love bite. 

The bruise on Iruka’s neck stayed dark for days. It was an embarrassing pleasant distraction. He couldn’t help but look at the spot when no one was around. It was so much better than a bloodspot on his bathroom wall. It not only proved Kakashi Hatake existed, but that the man wasn’t entirely – or maybe at all – a malicious missing nin by any measure. He hadn’t the courage to do anything like it to Kakashi before the elite shinobi slipped out his window… but now he was thinking about it.

Oh, Iruka’s daydreaming had become lewd… so very lewd.

Now, however –

One of the pre-genin boys had started crying, and Iruka immediately went to him. He could still see in his mind’s eye Naruto weeping, so lonely and left-out, and damn it… Keeping his gaze towards the only non-barricaded entrance-exit, Iruka embraced the sniffling child and let him cry.

He spoke carefully and calmly to the boy and the group of pre-genin, wide-eyed and afraid.

“There’s no need to be scared. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Even though he was the oh-so-impressive Iruka-sensei… he also knew to add, his voice strong:

“Our shinobi are out there defending us. You’ll be like them in no time: big, fast, and tough.”

Just as the pre-genin boy nodded at Iruka with lower lip trembling, a weird wobble ran through the ward encompassing the building. Iruka stepped away, moving into a defensive stance, his mind becoming blank. He would defend his students to the death, but if there was an ongoing invasion of Konoha, he… well, he wasn’t sure how long he could last. There were so many different reasons he’d never gone for jōnin, but truth be told, he simply didn’t have the incredible skills of Maito Gai or Yamato-Tenzo.

But you know what - ?

Fuck it. 

He’d take down anyone who came through his ward.

No one was getting to his students. 

**No one.**

“Back up,” Iruka firmly ordered his students. “Go to the corner, get ready to –”

The ward around them crumpled like paper crushed in a fist.

His ensuing ninjutsu nearly blew up Maito Gai, who looked both impressed and alarmed while being engulfed in the fiery explosion. Soon enough though, the jōnin lowered his massive green-clad arm, blinking wide-open black eyes that peered through the smoke. The fire jutsu had singed the ends of Gai’s bushy eyebrows, which inspired a frightfully embarrassed blush from Iruka. He started forward, instinctively wanting to apologize and check for injuries, but then he saw…

Kakashi Hatake was draped across Gai’s back, still wearing his crisp new ANBU uniform, admittedly a bit disheveled and now slightly burnt. Yet his red-and-white mask was violently cracked; it had lost a long dagger-shaped piece that had previously shielded his Sharingan. There was no denying just who was hanging limp and weak over Maito Gai’s shoulders… Crazy silver hair, pale skin, and stolen visual jutsu… He was the only one in the village who had those highly exclusive features. 

They were features of terror in the missing nin legend.

But… Gai wasn’t remotely trying to hide Kakashi’s identity from the Academy class. 

Instead, the jōnin pinched out the fire on his left eyebrow and declared with distinctive pride, “Iruka-sensei, you truly are something else! I can see why Kakashi begged me to bring him here.”

Iruka could barely muster coherent thought he was so astonished.

But his body understood it well enough, and his feet moved for him. 

He had his hands over Gai’s shoulder, brushing back Kakashi’s wild hair and checking the semi-closed Sharingan, looking for signs of distress. Without much effort, they could all be found: Kakashi had reached his chakra exhaustion point, something he’d quietly confessed sometimes happened to him. He’d explained that was what had occurred when Yamato – wait, no - Tenzo – had kidnapped Iruka and brought him to the Hatake compound… He’d overdone it on the rescue mission. It was one of the reasons a whole ANBU team was assigned to the job of ‘monster in the woods outside town’: Kakashi routinely overdid it, and he needed considerable time to recover.

… here and now, the eccentric scarred shinobi was looking straight at him, his black eye glossy, the Sharingan static and inactive.

“Hey,” Kakashi hailed him, very slow, almost soundless. “I came back to you like I promised.”

The second he stopped talking, he shut the Sharingan with a short flinch. Then Kakashi shook off Gai, sliding gracelessly down the man’s back, and staggered forward – into Iruka’s waiting arms. 

With his solitary eye, he looked drearily into Iruka’s surprised pair, but only after glancing over Iruka’s blush-heavy scarred features. He spoke in a voice so soft his words could have drifted away.

Kakashi sorrowfully informed him:

“The Hokage’s dead.”

Then his scar went slack as he swiftly began to pass out, becoming a heavy weight in Iruka’s arms. 

But his final whisper was so, so light as it floated and spun through Iruka.

“… I don’t know what will happen to my mission.”


	16. Chapter 16

This wasn’t Kakashi in his kitchen.

The Sharingan was less vibrant as it spun red and black. The man’s stance was oddly tense. His rainbow patchwork clothing was a ridiculous mess, dripping watered-down blood all over the linoleum floor. He shook like a little leaf tossed violently about by a ferocious wind.

Iruka stared in crazed disbelief at the stranger wearing Kakashi’s façade. The plate still held in his hand was only halfway cleaned. He had to purposefully tighten his grip not to drop it from shock.

“… Yuuto?” he guessed, faint and disturbed. 

The Kakashi’s chest heaved once, then twice, and then he nodded sharply up and down. Throwing a slender hand through silver hair, the transformed nin breathed out unstably. Excess blood poured out of him from an unseen wound. Yuuto moved his fingers to clasp his right side, hard and clinical. 

His voice was Kakashi Hatake’s, but the tone was all wrong, higher-pitched and flighty. He said brittlely, “Sensei, I’m sorry to show up like this.” Yes, it definitely was him… Yuuto Kuzurasa, the ANBU medical-nin, the teammate who routinely impersonated Kakashi and healed him and made them both elaborate bento boxes. He blinked Kakashi’s eyes – the Sharingan and the black one – and crinkled Kakashi’s masked expression into one of genuine regret and discomfort. 

All of a sudden, it occurred to Iruka why Yuuto would appear before him in such disarray.

_Oh. Oh fuck. Oh no._

Iruka unthinkingly dropped the plate. 

It shattered at his feet. 

He hadn’t been able to process the Third’s death or funeral. He could barely grasp all of the details of Naruto’s horrible fighting with the Suna forces, especially his combat with another jinchūriki, even if the two of them had eventually bonded over shared suffering. He hadn’t seen Kakashi in so long. The man had recovered just long enough to kiss Iruka goodbye before he headed out in defense of Konoha in her greatly weakened state, lacking a Hokage and worrying about Orochimaru. 

… now… now…

_He’s dead. **He’s dead.**_

Yuuto couldn’t control Kakashi’s scarred features: alarm decimated his composure. The ANBU shot forward and caught Iruka by the shoulders as he slumped down to his knees, losing himself in grief. 

“No, no, no,” the medical-nin was stammering desperately. Yuuto’s blood splashed across Iruka’s frame, soaking him so thoroughly that the liquid made the cloth of his trousers warm and wet and clinging. “I – no, I’m sorry – I just – hang on, please –”

But there was already mourning ruining him, making him empty and shrill and crushed inside. Unable to hold himself up, Iruka dropped his head onto the not-Kakashi’s shoulder, feeling tears prick hot and devastated in both his horrified eyes. 

There. it. was. – there. it. was. – just. what. he. feared. – his lover - dead. - dead. - dead. -

Yet then Yuuto was handling him roughly, flinging him backward and shaking him like a ragdoll.

“Sensei, listen to me, he’s not dead,” the man replicating Kakashi told him furiously. “Gai saved him from Itachi just in time. **He’s at the hospital!** He’s in a coma.”

Iruka looked up at Kakashi’s terrified, stricken expression… the mask damp from blood and sweat… the Sharingan keeping an eerie even pace as it spun and spun… and… and…

He slapped Yuuto across the face so hard the man hit the cabinet. 

“You owe me ten years of MY LIFE,” Iruka was saying rapidly, rabidly, while he simultaneously shoved as much healing chakra as he could into the grievously injured medical-nin before him. 

Laughing in a soft broken way, Yuuto looked over Iruka’s face and smiled widely underneath the frayed mask, creating the surreal image of a desperately melodramatic Kakashi Hatake. He patted Iruka’s face with slick bloodied fingers, leaving behind long lines of gore. Then the ANBU sang, dazedly teasing, staring into Iruka’s bewildered widening eyes, “You’re in love~ You’re in love~”

Iruka finally realized he should ask… 

“… what happened to you?” 

In response, Yuuto stood up, as glorious and elegant and lethargic as the shinobi he was imitating. He offered a hand down to Iruka while smiling far below the mask. “I helped Jiraiya save Naruto,” the ANBU said with the relieved cheer of someone recently healed. He winked theatrically at Iruka, keeping open Kakashi’s unsettling spinning Sharingan. “‘Cause I know you love him, too.”

Although he acted as if totally improved, Iruka instantly recognized Yuuto was pretending. As he took the other man’s hand, the medical-nin stumbled one foot forward – then caught himself. He pulled it off beautifully wearing Kakashi’s appearance, looking like nothing had happened… but…

Iruka didn’t rush him out of the apartment. He let the ANBU vanish out the window at his own slower pace…

And then he ran like his ponytail was on fire - all the way to the hospital. 

In his mad magical way, Yuuto met Iruka there, now dressed in his full ANBU attire, porcelain mask and all. He grandly gestured Iruka through the facility, past curious medical-nin who didn’t seem to recognize Yuuto except for his ANBU clothing and presumptive status as an elite shinobi. They were soon in a far distant corner of the hospital behind several locked doors and ward barrier jutsus. 

The door looked like any other, but Yuuto stopped at it anyway. 

He nodded once at Iruka.

Then he was gone, as swift as Kakashi and just as silent.

Pain clenched at Iruka’s insides, tight and clawing, in his stomach, in his soul. Behind this door… Kakashi Hatake was comatose, having fought with… 

_… Itachi Uchiha? The other missing nin?_

The doorknob was so, so far away, and strange-looking, and impossible to touch. Yet as Iruka held his fingers aloft, lifting them towards the metal handle, he realized he was doing the impossible. He was opening the door to something else, something more than just extraordinary meetings in the ghostly woods and his dark apartment and the lonely desolate Hatake compound. This was public, even if it was behind intense jutsus; this was a step in a different direction, one that meant more.

And there Kakashi was in his ANBU mask, but his hair wasn’t the dark grey wig. It was his own silver stuff puffing up to the left out of the red-lined white ceramic. His body was without missing limbs or massive visible bruises. White sheets covered him up to his waistline, revealing the long-sleeved ANBU shirt seemingly specific to this four-man team’s dreadful mission. His breath was slow and low, his body limp and long and lean. As to be expected… Kakashi was alone in his hurt.

It didn’t occur to Iruka to go home. 

He wondered every once and a while about Naruto.

Here and there, Yuuto stopped by, looking healthier. So too did the Aburame ANBU, her spiders a black bothered storm on her face, their tiny dark legs clicking on the fine porcelain. She lingered much less than the team medical-nin, who more often checked on Kakashi. Sometimes Yuuto smiled at Iruka using the comatose man’s very same face, which was eerie and surreal and wrong. 

No other ANBU visited. 

Not Ya... _Tenzo_. Not even once.

Maito Gai did not appear, either.

It…

It was days. 

Now that Iruka was thinking about it –

It had been weeks.

He wondered… what he’d been eating, if he’d ever taken a shower.

Kakashi was always the same, laying there, breathing shallowly. 

Iruka moisturized the poor nin’s hands. He made Kakashi as comfortable as possible. He…

“Iruka-sensei,” Tenzo suddenly said. 

He rose his weary eyes from Kakashi’s ANBU mask… to see Tenzo standing beside Yuuto and Haruko Aburame… all three on the other side of the hospital cot… and… there was also…

_Who…?_

Strength radiated from her full figure; intensity billowed out like smoke from her form. Her incisive insightful gaze observed Iruka down to the smallest holes in his bone marrow. She seemingly investigated each one as if they were secret cave entrances to the earliest days of mankind. 

Answering on instinct, Iruka stood on shaky feet and lowered himself into a deep, full bow. 

It didn’t have to be said who this was… He understood it by the prominence of her presence.

He declared, throat dry, sounding choked:

“Hokage-sama.”

She said something to him, and then Iruka waited in the hallway for a long, long time. He considered his open palms, noticing that his ritual of taking care of Kakashi’s hands had made his own softer and smoother, although he still had calluses and scars aplenty. 

There were a few meals had out in the corridor, mostly mission rations, but at least once Tenzo sat with him on the bench. At some point the sensei-ANBU-kouhai offered him takeout ramen. When Iruka gave up halfway, Tenzo ate the rest. There was nothing to be said, so neither said anything. 

Then Yuuto, Haruko, and Tenzo brought him inside, and there the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade, the granddaughter of the First Hokage, stared at him with steady deliberating attention.

But Iruka ignored her entirely. Truthfully, he barely even saw her.

Because…

_He’s awake._

Through the eyeholes of his ANBU mask, Kakashi looked at Iruka like he was seeing his destiny.

An uncensored and highly significant discussion was happening all around them, but…

_ **He’s awake.** _

“But my whole family thinks I’m dead,” said the Aburame at an odd almost emotional pitch. 

“Well,” Tsunade proclaimed curtly, “You’re not anymore.”

“Everyone was told I was exiled to the Land of Snow for misbehavior. What should –” 

The Hokage sharply cut into Yuuto’s confused inquiry: “Welcome back. It’s warmer here.”

Then, out of the corner of Iruka’s eye, he saw Tsunade hand each ANBU, dressed in their long-sleeved greys and porcelain masks, an individual mission scroll clearly marked as S-ranked. 

Tenzo did not ask a single question. He protested nothing. He accepted the change and the scroll. But he watched Iruka with dark contemplative interest, something more felt than fully seen.

“And you, Iruka-sensei,” the Fifth Hokage announced, brisk and decisive. “You have a mission, too.”

She gave Iruka the mission scroll; it seemed to weigh twenty thousand tons. _I’ve become weak,_ Iruka realized, surprised. All at once, it occurred to him that he hadn’t trained a while, nor eaten, nor slept. He’d never gone home. He’d never returned to school. 

Instead… his eyes had stayed on Kakashi... the whole time.

Only a lifetime of etiquette drove him to open the scroll and read its contents. 

He jerked his head towards Tsunade, amazement making him pale and flush, turning him splotchy.

The Fifth announced with the finality of a Hokage on her inauguration day: “Your S-ranked mission is to reintegrate the missing nin, Kakashi Hatake, back into the village of Konoha. You will do so indefinitely. He will not leave your sight. You will prevent him from hurting others and being hurt. Under no circumstances will you discuss the team’s earlier mission, and you will never get caught up in a mess this bad ever again.” A solid single second pause, then: “Do you understand?”

Barely in existence, Iruka slipped his hand into Kakashi’s waiting one.

The silver-haired shinobi was holding his breath, waiting in silence for Iruka to respond.

He answered easily.

“Yes. I’ll bring Kakashi home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi and Iruka will return in "Monster in the Village," a direct sequel to this story, written from the perspective of Kakashi Hatake.


End file.
